Educational Evaluation: Classic Works of Ralph W. Tyler Educational Evaluation: Classic Works of Ralph W. Tyler Compiled and Edited by George F. Madaus and Daniel L. Stufflebeam ~. Kluwer Academic Publishers " Boston Dordrecht London Distributors for the United States and Canada: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive, Assinippi Park, Norwell, MA 02061. for the UK and Ireland: Kluwer Academic Publishers, Falcon House, Queen Square, Lancaster LAI IRN, UK. for all other countries: Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, Distribution Centre, P. O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Tyler, Ralph Winfred, 1902- Educational evaluation: classical works of Ralph W. Tyler/ edited by George F. Madaus and Daniel Stufflebeam. p. cm. - (Evaluation in education and human services) Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7708-8 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-2679-0 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-2679-0 1. Educational tests and measurements-United States Collected works. 2. Students-United States-Rating of Collected works. I. Madaus, George F. II. Stufflebeam, Daniel L. III. Title. IV. Series. LB3051. T93 1988 371.2'6-dc19 88-833 CIP © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1 st edition 1989 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive, Assinippi Park, Norwell, MA 02061 Contents Foreword vii Preface xi Part I The Service Study Years: 1929 to 1938 1 1 3 Overview Key Points 2 7 Service Studies in Higher Education Introduction The Construction of Examinations in Botany and Zoology 3 17 Constructing Achievement Tests Measuring the Results of College Instruction A Generalized Technique for Constructing Achievement Tests Formulating Objectives for Tests Ability To Use Scientific Method Explanation Test Measuring the Ability To Infer A Test of Skill in Using the Microscope The Master-List as a Device Improving Test Materials in the Social Studies Assumptions Involved in Achievement-Test Construction What Is Statistical Significance? Making a Co-operative Test Service Effective Techniques for Evaluating Behavior Notes Part II Appraising and Recording Student Progress: The Eight-Year 87 Study 1 M Overview v vi CONTENTS Key Points 2 93 Appraising and Recording Student Progress Preface Commission on the Relation of School and College Purposes and Procedures of the Evaluation Staff Aspects of Thinking Evaluation of Social Sensitivity Aspects of Appreciation Interpretation and Uses of Evaluation Data Philosophy and Objectives Teachers' Reports and Reports to the Home Notes Part III Tyler's Rationale for Curriculum Development 197 1 199 Overview Key Points 2 201 New Dimensions in Curriculum Development Part IV National Testing Programs 209 1 211 Overview Key Points 2 215 Appraisal of Edu'cational Achievement Gained in the Armed Forces 3 223 The Objectives and Plans for a National Assessment of Educational Progress 4 227 National Assessment - Some Valuable By-Products for Schools Note Part V Tyler's Recent Reflections on His Work 239 1 241 Overview Key Points 2 243 An Interview with Ralph Tyler The Preface Interview 3 273 Appendix: Vitae of Ralph Winfred Tyler Part VI A Chronological Bibliography 275 Index 307 Foreword I personally learned to know Ralph Tyler rather late in his career when, in the 1960s, I spent a year as a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. His term of office as Director of the Center was then approaching its end. This would seem to disqualify me thoroughly from preparing a Foreword to this "Classic Works." Many of his colleagues and, not least, of his students at his dear Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, are certainly better prepared than I to put his role in American education in proper perspective. The reason for inviting me is, I assume, to bring out the influence that Tyler has had on the international educational scene. I am writing this Foreword on a personal note. Ralph Tyler's accomplishments in his roles as a scholar, policy maker, educational leader, and statesman have been amply put on record in this book, not least in the editors' Preface. My reflections are those of an observer from abroad but who, over the last 25 years, has been close enough to overcome the aloofness of the foreigner. Tyler has over many years been criss-crossing the North American con tinent generously giving advice to agencies at the federal, state, and local levels, lecturing, and serving on many committees and task forces that have been instrumental in shaping American education. Several years ago, Tyler'S famous student, Benjamin Bloom, told me that he and a group of colleagues had ventured a guess of how much of his life Tyler had spent in airplanes. They came up with an estimate of two years! One Saturday morn ing in the mid-1960s when I drove up to the Stanford Center I ran across Ralph whom I had not seen for the whole week. I knew that he - as usual - had been busy with many things at many places, but in particular with the preparatory work for the National Assessment of Educational Pro gress. I asked him: "Ralph, how often do you cross the American conti nent?" With the typical sense of humor pouring through his peering eyes vii viii FOREWORD he replied: "I am trying to keep it down to one tour per week." Ralph Tyler's fellow countrymen are perhaps less familiar with his inter national than his national impact. As a graduate student in the early 1940s (during the war when scholarly communications were scarce) I obtained a copy of a report from the Eight-Year Study that, along with his subsequent book on the basic principles of curriculum and instruction, soon began to be regarded as a classic. These and other publications from the 1940s pro vided a solid empirical foundation for those of us who conducted studies in educational psychology. During the early stages of his career, Ralph· Tyler was instrumental in developing relevant examinations in specific subject matter fields and he laid the ground for better methods of achievement testing. Psychometricians had, around 1930, developed techniques of measuring certain psychological traits, but Tyler adapted these techniques to suit achievement testing. He widened the horizon with his famous rationales for both evaluation and cur riculum construction. It was certainly part of the logic of the events that he was the one who, in due time, provided the rationale for a national assess ment of educational progress. What strikes me, both in reading this book and in reflecting on my close contacts with American educators, is how seminal Tyler has been with his ideas, not least through his own students. Tyler's bibliography at the end of this book carries a large number of articles in a variety of professional journals (educational and others) in which he acts as a builder of bridges between theory and practice. No wonder, then, that he has been a much sought after consultant and has been asked to nominate superintendents, deans, and other leading people in the educational enterprise. To me - and, I think to many of my colleagues around the world - Ralph Tyler stands out as the leading figure in American educational research and evaluation - indeed as Mr. Education himself. During the "classical period" epitomized in this book, he advanced his evaluation theory and its applications as well as the principles of curriculum and instruction. It was therefore no surprise to me during my first year at his Center to find that he was the central figure and the idea injector in the enterprise later known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Apart from the intellectual leadership required to establish this new system of national evaluation, he had to develop a skillful diplomacy in order to overcome the deep suspicion that many people held against centrally organized assessment. It smelled of federal intrusion. Neither was it a surprise to me to learn that Tyler emerged as the leading figure in the establishment of a U.S. National Academy of Education. He served as its president for quite some time and his contribution gave it ix FOREWORD a high status both within and outside the educational community. As a Foreign Associate of the Academy, I had ample opportunity to observe how, in conducting business during our meetings, he could draw upon an inexhaustible body of experience and could sprinkle the sessions with his witty remarks and anecdotes. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (lEA), on Ben Bloom's initiative, decided in 1971 to organize an international seminar in Sweden on curriculum development and evalua tion. The seminar went on for six weeks with some 125 participants from more than 23 nations. Ralph Tyler was the self-evident choice as the key lec turer. We succeeded in holding him for the whole 6-week period in the little town of Granna in Sweden. This was, indeed, quite an achievement. I wondered whether Ralph had stayed for such a long time at the same place at any time in his adult life! When a person comes to our mind, we tend to imagine him or her in concrete situations. In my case, what particularly stands out in recalling encounters with Tyler is a walk with him late one evening from the Inter national House to the Quadrangle Club (where we were both staying) at the University of Chicago - that great institution where Tyler had spent so many productive years and had been instrumental in bringing its Education Department to the forefront, not only in the United States but in the whole world. I heard him often use the expression "cutting edge." He wanted to be part of it. As we passed Judd Hall that evening, Ralph gave me a detailed and vivid account of how education was established at the University during the Dewey era around the turn of the century. This was a fascinating piece of history of education. Hardly have we on many occasions seized on any topic of conversation before Ralph's immense knowledge of individuals and his interest in their biographies flourished. He is a living Who's Who in American education, and has an encyclopedic grasp of the educational enterprise. Many of us have experienced how he, without even a piece of paper with its main points in his hands, could give a well-structured lecture on almost any topic in education. The Annual Meeting Programs of AERA still carry Tyler's name in several sessions and symposia. He is, indeed, a great generalist in a field where short-sighted specialization, as in other scholarly areas, is gradually creeping in. We are all, to varying degrees, prisoners of prevalent "paradigms," a term that (it is well known) was coined at the University of Chicago in the early 1960s. Ralph Tyler's contributions to modern thinking in education as epitomized in this volume have, in a remarkable way, survived the change of time and paradigms. He has been able to cut through generations of x FOREWORD educational scholars, which is no surprise to those of us who have seen the rapport that he is able to establish with young people. This timelessness is, in my view, the main reason why it has been considered fitting to collate his lasting contributions to educational scholarship. They have, indeed, withstood the test of time. The emphasis in the present collection is naturally on publications from Tyler's early and mid-career - periods when he apparantly had more time to devote to the writing of major, monographic pieces. He had not yet been submerged in the many activities that took him around his home country and the world at large. His creativity and accomplishments as an innovator did by no means diminish after he left Chicago for the Stanford Center in the early 1950s. The Bibliography attached to this book bears witness to this. American public education has been intermittently under fire and sub jected to severe criticism during the post-war years. Those of us on the other side of the Atlantic who in various capacities have been involved in reform ing the school systems in our home countries have, since the 1940s, been looking at the American public school as a model because of its role as a pillar of American democracy. Ralph Tyler has, during his entire career, always held a strong commitment to free public education that takes care of all children from all walks of life and all ethnic backgrounds - a school providing the same conditions and having them under a common roof. Tyler has seen his task as one of giving service to that school. Dr. Tyler now lives in Milpitas, California. When I last visited California, somebody gave me a clipping from the San Jose Mercury News of an article published on his 85th birthday. He was presented as a person whose "main problem" since he was young had been "excess energy," something that was behind the opposition that brought him into trouble in high school. He is quoted as saying, after consulting his doctor, that as long as he is active he has no reason to worry about health. He has kept so much of his youthfulness and a combination of seriousness and levity of mind that has been behind his inspiring achievements. Dr. Torsten Husen, President International Academy of Education Preface For nearly 60 years, Ralph W. Tyler has been one of the most influential figures in education, at all levels both nationally and internationally. He has made substantial contributions to the fields of curriculum, testing, evalua tion, and educational policy. Directly through his work, and indirectly through his many famous students, he has deeply influenced many note worthy developments in education, including objective-referenced testing, objectives-based program evaluation, mastery learning, achievement test construction, item banking, the taxonomic classification of educational out comes, and cooperative test development. He has been instrumental in the development of several national testing programs including the General Educational Development Program, the Cooperative Testing Program, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress. During the past half-century, Tyler's role in education may easily be labeled that of educational statesman. He has been an advisor to pre sidents, legislators, and national and international commissions. He has helped local schools, school districts, colleges and universities, and state departments of education in the United States and in numerous overseas countries. His work and influence have always been grounded in practical experience, oriented to service, and dedicated to improvement and progress in education. His work reflects his brilliance and vision. His life's work has been governed by a keen sense of values, equity, and fairness. Throughout his career his work shows his humility and sense of humor - the latter often at his own expense. Tyler's writings chronicle his ideas and projects over the years. His writings are filled with rich and instructive examples that still illuminate many contemporary theories, practices, and policies in education. Students of education can greatly increase their understanding of education's history and progress since the 1930s through a review of Tyler's work. Some of his xi