National testing of students has become an increasingly prevalent policy tool, often implemented to drive improvement through increased accountability and heightened competition between schools. Such testing has been found to generate negative emotional responses among students, including increased stress and anxiety . However, there is little examining whether such responses are associated specifically with national testing regimes or are more general responses to testing situations. This study surveyed 206 students in Australian secondary schools to compare responses to NAPLAN and internal school tests. Students reported higher expectations for their performance in internal school tests than for NAPLAN, higher levels of boredom for NAPLAN and greater levels of confidence for their internal school tests. While most students reported low levels of negative emotional responses to NAPLAN, a small group of students reported strong negative emotional responses to both NAPLAN and internal school tests, suggesting that negative responses to national testing programs may be more dependent on the individual student.

学生的国家测试已成为一种越来越流行的政策工具，通常通过加强问责制和加强学校之间的竞争来推动改进。已发现此类测试会在学生中产生负面情绪反应，包括增加压力和焦虑。然而，很少有人研究这些反应是否与国家测试制度特别相关，或者是对测试情况的​​更普遍的反应。这项研究调查了澳大利亚中学的 206 名学生，以比较对 NAPLAN 和学校内部测试的反应。与 NAPLAN 相比，学生们对他们在学校内部测试中的表现的期望更高，对 NAPLAN 的无聊程度更高，对内部学校测试的信心更高。