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Pages 17-36

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From page 17...
... with support from the National Science Foundation. The committee's charge was to review and synthesize advances in the cognitive sciences and to explore their implications for improving educational assessment in general and assessment of science and mathematics education in particular.
From page 18...
... Our hope is that by reviewing advances in the sciences of how people learn and how such learning can be measured, and by suggesting steps for future research and development, this report will help lay the foundation for a significant leap forward in the field of assessment. The committee envisions a new generation of educational assessments that better serve the goal of equity.
From page 19...
... Educational assessments assist teachers, students, and parents in determining how well students are learning. They help teachers understand how to adapt instruction on the basis of evidence of student learning.
From page 20...
... . All of these terms are used in this report, but we often opt for the term "assessment" instead of "test" to denote a more comprehensive set of means for eliciting evidence of student performance than the traditional paper-and-pencil, multiple-choice instruments often associated with the word "test." dents, classrooms, and schools.
From page 21...
... Numerous researchers interested in problems of educational assessment have argued that, if brought together, advances in the cognitive and measurement sciences could provide a powerful basis for refashioning educational assessment (e.g., Baker, 1997; Glaser and Silver, 1994; Messick, 1984; Mislevy, 1994; National Academy of Education, 1996; Nichols, 1994; National Research Council PNRC] , 1999b; Pellegrino, Baxter, and Glaser, 1999; Snow and Lohman, 1989; Wilson and Adams, 19961.
From page 22...
... 22 KNOWING WHAT STUDENTS KNOW sections briefly review these trends, which are changing expectations for student learning and the assessment of that learning. Societal, Economic, anc!
From page 23...
... In addition, virtually every state and many large school districts have standards in place outlining what all students should know and be able to do in core subjects. These standards are intended to guide both practice and policy at the state and district levels, including the development of largescale assessments of student performance.
From page 24...
... 20) In these respects, the standards represent an important start toward incorporating findings from cognitive research about the nature of knowledge and expertise into curriculum and instruction.
From page 25...
... 19) has noted, "It is only a slight exaggeration to describe the test theory that dominates educational measurement today as the application of 20th century statistics to 19th century psychology." Although the core concepts of prior theories and models are still useful for certain purposes, they need to be augmented or supplanted to deal with newer assessment needs.
From page 26...
... 26 KNOWING WHAT STUDENTS KNOW the effectiveness of schools in accomplishing their missions could be used to sort students according to their general ability levels and provide schooling according to need. Yet significant problems have arisen in the history of assessment when it has been assumed that tests designed to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and schools can be used to make judgments about individual students.
From page 27...
... If scores go up on a test that measures a relatively narrow range of knowledge and skills, does that mean student learning has improved, or has instruction simply adapted to a constrained set of outcomes? If there is explicit "teaching to the test," at what cost do such gains in test scores accrue relative to acquiring other aspects of knowledge and skill that are valued in today's society?
From page 28...
... Once ~'e' connections, showing the tual understanding over time, which is at the heart of learning. This limitation exists largely because most current modes of assessment lack an underlying theoretical framework of how student understanding in a content domain develops over the course of instruction, and predominant measurement methods are not designed to capture such growth.
From page 29...
... However, when assessment fails to provide information that can enhance learning, it leaves educators ill equipped to close achievement gaps. While concerns associated with large-scale tests have received considerable attention, particularly in recent years, the classroom assessments commonly used by teachers also are often limited in the information they provide.
From page 30...
... Assessment Based on Contemporary Foundations Several decades of research in the cognitive sciences has advanced the knowledge base about how children develop understanding, how people reason and build structures of knowledge, which thinking processes are associated with competent performance, and how knowledge is shaped by social context. These findings, presented in Chapter 3, suggest directions for revamping assessment to provide better information about students' levels
From page 31...
... As presented in Chapter 4, a wide array of statistical measurement methods is currently available to support the kinds of inferences that cognitive research suggests are important to draw when measuring student achievement. In this report we describe examples of some initial and promising attempts to capitalize on these advances.
From page 32...
... More informative classroom assessments could result in earlier identification of learning problems and interventions for children at risk, rather than waiting for results from large-scale assessments to signal problems. Students with disabilities could also benefit from this approach.
From page 33...
... · A science of assessment that brought together cognitive principles and highly developed measurement models could address some of the limitations of current assessments and yield a number of benefits for students, teachers, and the educational system as a whole. Effort must be made to study what can be accomplished through programs of sustained assessment design and implementation based on current scientific knowledge.
From page 34...
... Chapter 3 reviews contemporary understanding of how people learn, focusing on findings that have implications for improving educational assessment. The discussion addresses the way knowledge is represented and organized in the mind, the characteristics of expertise in a discipline and the development of that expertise, and the influence of cultural and social factors on learning.
From page 35...
... 1 RETHINKING THE FOUNDATIONS OF ASSESSMENT ter 7 considers the role of technology in transforming both the kinds of learning that should be assessed and the assessment methods used. The chapter includes examples of technological tools that illustrate new uses for assessment and highlights some issues that need to be considered as technology becomes more important in education.


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