CHANGING ASSESSMENTS Evaluation in Education and Human Services Editors: George F. Madaus, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, U.S.A. Daniel L. Stufflebeam, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, U.S.A. National Commission on Testing and Public Policy Gifford, B.; Test Policy and the Politics of Opportunity Allocation: The Workplace and the Law Gifford, B.; Test Policy and Test Performance: Education, Language, and Culture Gifford, B., and Wing, L.: Test Policy in Defense CHANGING ASSESSMENTS Alternative Views of Aptitude, Achievement and Instruction Edited by Bernard R. Gifford University of California, Berkeley and Mary Catherine O'Connor Boston University ~. " Springer Science+Business Media, LLC Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Changing assessments : alternative views of aptitude, achievement, and instruction / edited by Bernard R. Gifford and Mary Catherine O'Connor. p. em. - (Evaluation in edueation and human services) lncludes bibliographieal referenees and index. ISBN 978-94-010-5318-1 ISBN 978-94-011-2968-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-2968-8 1. Edueational tests and measurements-United States. 2. Ability -Testing. 1. Gifford, Bernard R. II. O'Connor, Mary Catherine. III. Series. LB30S1.C448 1992 371.2 '6-de20 91-3S093 CIP Copyright © 1992 by Springer Science+Business Media New York Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1992 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover Ist edition 1992 Ali rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form orby any means, mechanical, photo-copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. Printed an acid-free paper. Contents Contributors vii Introduction Bernard R. Gifford 1 Rethinking Aptitude, Achievement, and Instruction: Cognitive Science Research and the Framing of Assessment Policy Mary Catherine 0' Connor 9 Assessing the Thinking Curriculum: New Tools for Educational Reform Lauren B. Resnick and Daniel P. Resnick 37 Assessment in Context: The Alternative to Standardized Testing Howard Gardner 77 Interactive Learning Environments: A New Look at Assessment and Instruction Ann L. Brown, Joseph C. Campione, Lynne S. Webber, and Kate McGilly 121 vi CAT: A Program of Comprehensive Abilities Testing Robert J. Sternberg 213 CommentaIy: Understanding What We Measure and Measuring What We Understand James W. Pellegrino 275 CommentaIy: What Policy Makers Who Mandate Tests Should Know About the New Psychology of Intellectual Ability and Learning Lorrie A. Shepard 301 Index 329 Contributors Ann L. Brown is the Evelyn Lois Corey Faculty Fellow in Instruction at the School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of London. Since 1978 Brown was professor of Psychology and Senior Scientist at the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Brown is highly regarded as a leading authority on child development, the psychology of reading, and metacognition. She has well over 100 published articles that are widely cited in the field. Since 1971 she has served as a consultant editor on the boards of six professional journals and is presently an Associate Editor of Cognition and Instruction. Dr. Brown has served as President of Division 7 of the American Psychological Society and is currently Vice-President of the prestigious National Academy of Education. Joseph C. Campione is a professor at the School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also the director of the joint program in special education. Dr. Campione received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1965. Dr. Campione was professor of Psychology and Research Professor at the Center for the Study of Reading and Cognition at the University of Illinois, Champaign, since 1976. Dr. Campione's research and his more than 90 published works focus on learning strategies of educationally at-risk children, transfer of training, metacognition, and issues of assessment and instruction. Howard Gardner is a research psychologist in Boston. He investigates human cognitive capacities, particularly those central to the arts, in normal children, gifted children, and brain-damaged adults. He is the author of over 250 articles in professional journals and wide-circulation periodicals. Among his ten books are The Questfor Mind (1973; second edition, 1981); The Shattered Mind (1975); Developmental Psychology (1978; second edition, 1982); Art. Mind and Brain (1982); Frames of Mind (1983); The Mind's New Science (1985); and, most recently, To Open Minds: Chinese Clues to the Dilemma of American Education (1989). At present, Howard Gardner serves as Professor of Education and Co Director of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education; Research Psychologist at the Boston Veterans Administration Medical Center; and Adjunct Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine. In 1981 he was awarded a MacArthur Prize Fellowship. Bernard R. Gifford, chair of the National Commission on Testing and Public Policy, is Chancellor's Professor of Education in the School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. He served there as Dean of the Graduate viii School of Education from 1983 through 1989. Now on leave from the university, he is currently serving as Vice President, Education, Apple Computer Inc. He received his Ph.D. in radiation biology and biophysics from the University of Rochester. Gifford has published in a number of disciplinary areas, ranging from applied physics to public policy. In recent years he has devoted most of his efforts to writing about the process of educational change and reform. His latest books are History in the Schools: What Shall We Teacher? (Macmillan, 1988), Test Policy and the Politics of Opportunity Allocation: The Workplace and the Law (Kluwer, 1989) and Testing Policy and Test Perfonnance: Education. Language and Culture (Kluwer, 1989). Kate McGilly is a post-doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include children's strategy development and mathematics learning. Dr. McGilly received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University in 1988. Mary Catherine O'Connor is an Assistant Professor at Boston University, with appointments in the Program in Literacy, Language and Cultural Studies, and the Program in Applied Linguistics. She received her Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1987. Funded by a Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship and by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the Literacies Institute, she is currently carrying out research on the ways that discourse shapes mathematics learning in middle school. Her research interests include discourse and narrative analysis, the development of school and community-based languages and literacies, and the influences of language and culture on standardized testing and alternative forms of assessment. She also works on the grammar of Northern Porno, a native language of Northern California, currently supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. James W. Pellegrino is a Frank W. Mayborn Professor of Cognitive Studies at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Since 1990 he has been co-director of the Learning Technology Center at Vanderbilt. Previously he was Professor of Education and Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is widely published in the area of cognitive science research on thinking and learning. Most recently, his research has focused on applications of cognitive theory and computer technology to the assessment and training of quantitative and visual-spatial abilities. His most recent work is being carried out at the Cognition and Technology Group at the Learning Technology Center. Recent publications include work on anchored instruction and its relationship to situated learning, and the use of technology in the design of generative learning environments. ix Daniel P. Resnick is Professor of History and Director of European Studies at Carnegie Mellon University. His first scholarly work was in the field of French history, and he has published articles, a monograph, and textbooks in the field of European history and Western development. For more than a decade, his research has dealt with the broad themes of literacy development, schooling, and assessment in American and European settings. A study of public school testing practices, undertaken with Lauren Resnick, was supported by the Carnegie Corporation. He is currently at work on patterns of postsecondary assessment at American colleges and universities, a study supported by the Carnegie Foundation. Lauren B. Resnick is Professor of Psychology and Education and Director of the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Professor Resnick's primary interest is the cognitive psychology of instruction. Her research focuses on the learning of mathematics and science. She is the founder and editor of Cognition and Instruction, a major new journal in the field; coeditor of the Instructional Psychology Series; and author of a recent, widely circulated monograph commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) entitled Education and Learning to Think. She has also authored and edited volumes on The Psychology of Mathematics for Instruction. The Nature of Intelligence. and, most recently, Knowing. Learning, and Instruction. Dr. Resnick serves on a number of national and international boards and commissions and is active as a consultant to foundations and government agencies. She is a member of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board of the National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, and has served on various NAS committees. She is past president of the American Psychological Association's Division of Educational Psychology, and a fellow in the Association's divisions of Experimental Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Educational Psychology, and the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. She has also served as president of the American Educational Research Association and vice president of their Division of Learning and Instruction. In addition, Professor Resnick is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of Education. Lorrie A. Shepard is a Professor of Education at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her research in applied measurement has addressed issues of standard setting and test bias. Her work in educational policy research has focused on the use of tests for special school placements, e.g., identification of learning disabilities, grade retention, and kindergarten screening. Her current work addresses the effects of traditional testing on teaching and learning, and the development of alternative assessments. Shepard has served as President of the National Council on Measurement in Education, and as Vice-President for x Division D of the American Educational Research Association. She has been editor of the Journal of Educational Measurement and the American Educational Research Journal. She was Vice-Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on the General Aptitude Test Battery, and is currently a member of the National Academy of Education's panel to evaluate the state-by-state version of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Robert J. Sternberg is IBM Professor of Psychology and Education in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. He received his B.A. summa cum laude, Phi Betta Kappa from Yale in 1972 and his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1975. Dr. Sternberg has won a number of awards, including the Mensa Education and Research Foundation Award for Excellence (1989), designation in Who's Who in American Education (1989-), the Outstanding Book Award and the Research Review Award of the American Educational Research for Gifted Children (1985), the Cattell Award of the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology (1982), and the McCandless Young Scientist Award and the Distinguished Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology of the American Psychological Association (1982, 1981). Dr. Sternberg was a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow in 1985-1986 and an NSF Graduate Fellow in 1972-1975. His main interests are in understanding, measuring, and teaching intelligence and related thinking skills. Lynne S. Webber is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She received her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1987. Her research interests include listening comprehension and referential communication in young children, and issues concerning assessment and instruction.