Testing and Assessment: A Progress Report

This article, adapted from an American Educational Research Association presentation, deals with the intellectual history supporting the use of testing, such as the reliance on empirical fact, and educational reform, the belief in improvement. Despite a contentious history, progress will be possible if we can clarify and perhaps resolve 4 current tensions: (a) learning and change versus measurement models, (b) quality of information and policy use, (c) precision versus utility, and (d) individual accomplishment versus standardized attainment. Strategies to improve testing and its utility are offered. The first involves recommendations for detailed conceptual and functional analyses of what is actually measured and how it corresponds to demands for performance in school and elsewhere. The second points to the power of technology to improve validity, verisimilitude, and accuracy of information.