1. Chapter 2: Historical Foundations and Perspectives of Assessment

2. Use of Assessment Throughout History
Used by the Chinese to select mandarins for public service.
The Chinese strove to eliminate systematic bias.
Used by the Greeks in education.
The Jesuits administered the first written examinations in universities.

3. Measurement in the Laboratory
Those in experimental psychology sought to use the scientific method to explore the psychological world of human beings.
Charles Darwin - spurred experimental interest in individual differences
Sir Francis Galton – measured individual physical and psychological characteristics
Wilhelm Wundt - opened the first experimental psychology laboratory
James McKeen Cattell - first used the term “mental test”

4. Modern Applications of Assessment: Decision Making and Determination of Individual Differences
Intellectual assessment
Achievement assessment
Vocational and career assessment
Clinical and personality assessment

5. Intellectual Assessment
Earliest attempts to measure intellectual assessment were driven by the need to identify students with mental and emotional deficiencies for remedial education.
Early test development was atheoretical.
The Binet-Simon Scale and Army Alpha and Beta were some of the earliest attempts in the early 20th century.
Discussions regarding the definition, makeup, and characteristics of intelligence began in the 1920s.
Spearman’s concept of general intelligence
Thurstone’s seven primary mental abilities

6. Intellectual Assessment: The Binet-Simon Scale
Developed in 1905
Limited by an unrepresentative standardization sample
1908 revision used a larger standardization sample, more items, and introduced the concept of mental age
Translated and adapted for use in America by Lewis M. Terman

7. Intellectual Assessment: The Army Alpha and Army Beta
Developed by Robert Yerkes to screen World War I recruits
Army Alpha required reading ability and comprehension
Army Beta was a nonverbal test

8. Intellectual Assessment: Periods of Criticism
Unclear expectations regarding the roles of tests during the 1930s were addressed by David Wechsler.
He used subtests and a standard deviation IQ.
The civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s led some to insist that tests were instruments of oppression used to control the less privileged.
A movement emerged to correct biased test content.

9. Achievement Assessment
Edward L. Thorndike and his colleagues explored the issue of the subjectivity of essay questions in the early 20th century.
Stanford Achievement Test was the first standardized achievement battery to separately measure and report student performances in various areas.
Criticisms of multiple-choice format:
Does not assess depth of understanding
Resulted in performance-based assessment programs, which often lack minimally acceptable reliability

10. Achievement Assessment: Federal Law
Education for all Handicapped Children Act of has led to the widespread use of individualized intelligence and achievement tests in public schools.
Section 504 of the 1973 U.S. Rehabilitation Act entitles individuals with impairments to accommodations to facilitate success.

11. Vocational and Career Assessment
Frank Parsons - advocated matching an individual with an appropriate occupation.
Aptitude tests were common in the 1920s and 1930s for selection and classification of employees.
Multiaptitude batteries, popularized during World War II, are helpful today in identifying student strengths and weaknesses in order to determine a good career fit.
Sputnik spurred the National Defense Education Act in 1959, which funded school counselors to identify students showing promise in the mathematical and science fields.

12. Clinical and Personality Tests
The Woodsworth Personal Data Sheet developed for use in World War I but released for civilian use had transparent items so responses could easily be faked.
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory of 1940 used validity scales.
The Rorschach Inkblot test of 1921 explored client personalities using projective techniques.
Other projective tests promote forthrightness in client responses:
Thematic Apperception Test
House-Tree-Person
Kinetic Family Drawing

13. Other Historical Events Affecting Assessment
Many testing improvement initiatives stemmed from general societal concerns and specific test- related issues.
Oscar K. Buros catalogued and evaluated assessments in the Mental Measurements Yearbook.
The 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act required parental consent for assessments conducted around specific topics.
Computers have revolutionized assessment but come with ethical and legal challenges.

14. Controversies in Assessment: Learning from Past Mistakes and Criticisms
No test is perfect.
However, individuals exercising judgment are just as or even more susceptible than tests to threats to reliability and validity.