A majority of teachers believe state testing programs lead them to use unsound teaching practices, a nationwide survey of educators released yesterday shows.

The report, billed as the broadest of its kind, also revealed that nearly half of all teachers thought test scores could be raised without really improving learning.

The report, prepared by Boston College's Lynch School of Education after surveying 12,000 teachers in 47 states, found that educators did not object to standards but did not like being held to a single test.

``The thing that comes through clearly is teachers are not opposed to standards or having clear instructions,'' said Joseph Pedulla, a BC professor involved in the report. ``Where the issue comes to them is putting so much emphasis on a single test.'' In a related study, researchers compared high-stakes Massachusetts with no-stakes Kansas and medium-stakes Michigan. They found that the higher the stakes the greater the impact on classroom teaching.

Laura Barrett, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said the study brought educators' voices into the high-stakes testing debate.

``Most of our members do support state standards . . . but they think there's too much emphasis on the MCAS results and it crowds out important subject matter that isn't tested on MCAS,'' she said.

William Guenther of the business-backed Mass Insight Education said there was nothing wrong with teaching to a test so long as the test was good, as he said the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System is.

``A lot of states don't have the kind of tests you can be proud of or would not want to teach to,'' he said.