Chapter 9 - Eisner Reshaping Assessment
Why the need to broaden evaluation? During the 1970s, it became increasingly clear that SAT scores were dropping and the armed forces stated that new recruits could not read well enough The response – Accountability ~ testing In the mid-1980s, the demand for higher standards and demonstrated achievement began to soften. Assessment, a new term, was expected to be more generous, more complex, more closely aligned with life than with individual performance measured To measure, monitor, candidate
Still today, exploring new paths Mandates do not work Measurement of outcomes on instruments that have little predictive or concurrent validity is not effective Unless assessment procedures are created that have more educational validity than those currently used, change not likely
Functions of assessment Educational temperature taking Gatekeeping Determine whether course objectives have been attained Feedback to educators Quality of the program
The tasks used to assess what students know and can do need to reflect the tasks they will encounter in the world outside of class, not merely those limited to the educational tasks at hand.
The tasks used to assess students should reveal how students go about solving a problem, not only the solutions they formulated.
Assessment tasks should reflect the values of the intellectual community from which the tasks are derived.
Assessment tasks need not be limited to solo performance. Many of the most important tasks we undertake require group efforts.
New assessment tasks should make possible more than one acceptable solution to a problem and more than one acceptable answer to a question.
Assessment tasks should have curricular relevance, but not be limited to the curriculum as taught.
Assessment tasks should require students to display a sensitivity to configurations or wholes, not simply to discrete elements.
Assessment tasks should permit the student to select a form of representation he or she chooses to use to display what has been learned.