Low-stakes assessments in secondary and further education schools: A systematic literature review

The school system uses assessments as a means of grading students. However, there have been limited studies that show the extent to which this has been evidenced in the literature. The purpose of this review is to investigate the literature on how low-stakes assessments support students for better exam outcomes. This study will provide educators and practitioners with well-researched resources that can be accessed to demonstrate the relevance of low-stakes assessments towards overall student exam outcomes in achieving quality education. The design for this systematic literature review is based on bibliometric and content analysis of peer-reviewed papers. This systematic literature review investigates evidence from the literature by examining 23 peer-reviewed articles focused on low-stakes assessments in secondary and further education schools, drawn from 20 journals with contributing authors from countries on 4 continents of the world. The results from this study show that a correlation exists between students' low-stakes test-taking efforts and exam outcomes. However, it should be mentioned that the results of this study do not capture all aspects of low-stakes assessment due to the limited number of peer-reviewed articles examined. Also, the inclusion criteria did not include the impact of low-stakes assessment in a broader sense to include all tiers of learning. Hence, future studies should consider more tiers of learning and incorporate more studies with valid and reliable evidence. The findings from this study will inform lesson planning and curriculum development, thereby equipping teachers with empirically tested evidence for the use of low-stakes assessments during lessons.