LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature Review

Literature Review

Part 1:

History of Testing/Assessment in the United States

Kyriacou (1997, stated that "the history of science is the history of measurement" (p. 33). If Professor Cattell had the opportunity to read Clemson (1996), then he might have extended his statement by saying that the history of measurement is also the history of commerce and government as well as the history of many other significant aspects of modern social and political life.

My commentary will focus on implications of Porter's ideas as they relate to educational assessment and policy. Even a brief consideration of his excellent historical treatments of other fields provides a cautionary tale for some current practices in educational assessment and policy. Black (2002) starts his focus article by recalling a Soviet-era joke that equates the power of well-armed troops to economists shuffling along with their briefcases. This image captures Porter's view that WWII marked a significant transition in the power of social scientists and their tools for quantification. In American education, the power and influence of educational assessments goes back even farther with significant increases in standardized testing in post-WWI school systems. Many measurement specialists viewed their quantitative work as scientific, and given that most measurement specialists were trained in psychology, it is not surprising that they also tended to view themselves as scientists and technicians. It is safe to speculate that many, if not most, psychometricians working in the mid-20th century were not aware of the power that they held and the policy implications of their work(Black 2003).

The educational measurement community is no longer naïve about the power of tests, and it is recognized that the development and use of educational assessments must combine a careful consideration of technical issues and policy consequences. In the United States, many states convene technical advisory committees to review psychometric issues related to statewide assessments. Over the past 20 years of my involvement on these types of committees, I have observed how the discussion of technical and policy issues has changed from a total focus on technical to a mixture of technical and policy concerns. In some states, the emphasis on policy issues has overtaken the technical issues. Psychometricians recognize their power and try to understand both the intended and unintended consequences of the bureaucratic uses of educational assessments. It may be discomforting for technicians to consider some of these issues, but it is no longer ethical to simply focus on technical issues and dismiss other policy issues as being outside of ones technical purview. Smith (1989)defines objectivity as "the effort to be impersonal, the negation of subjectivity" (p. 3). From this perspective, quantification in general and educational assessment in particular embodies what Porter terms the technology of distance -- it minimizes the need for intimate knowledge and personal trust by making knowledge independent of the particular people who make it. Although impersonality (lack of subjectivity) has long been viewed as one of the hallmarks of science, it also provides a definition of ...