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A Brief History of Assessment & Testing

A Brief History of Assessment & Testing. “It is necessary to call into council the views of our predecessors, in order that we may profit by whatever is sound in their thought and avoid their errors.” —Aristotle, de Anima, Bk. 1, ch. 2, 403b20-23. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing.

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A Brief History of Assessment & Testing

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  1. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing “It is necessary to call into council the views of our predecessors, in order that we may profit by whatever is sound in their thought and avoid their errors.” —Aristotle, de Anima, Bk. 1, ch. 2, 403b20-23

  2. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • What is assessment? • Assessment: The process of gathering information to make informed decisions.

  3. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • Why do we need assessment? • Categorize • Diagnose • Measure Change • Predict an • Outcome • Certification

  4. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) • Gifted genius • Founder of social science • Pioneered use of statistics in psychological research • Teacher of Karl Pearson and Charles Spearman • Cousin to Charles Darwin • Eugenics

  5. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • James Cattell (1860-1944) • First person with title “Professor of Psychology” • Mental Tests and Measurements (1890) • Creator and/or editor of Psychological Review, Science (AAAS), and Popular Science. • President APA 1895

  6. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • Alfred Binet (1857-1911) • New Methods for the Diagnosis of the Intellectual Level of Subnormals • Binet-Simon Scale • Mental age.

  7. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • William Stern (1871-1938) • The Psychological Methods of Intelligence Testing • Modified the Binet-Simon scale to get the “mental quotient”, which later became known as IQ.

  8. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • Henry Goddard (1866-1957) • Large scale implementation of IQ tests. • The Kallikak Family. • 27 states practiced eugenics based on his work. • Huge influence on military, immigration, and society.

  9. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • Lewis Terman (1877-1956) • Refined the Binet-Simon test and produced the modern Stanford Binet, also known as the Stanford Achievement Test. • The Stanford Achievement Test (1916) set the testing benchmark for over two decades.

  10. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • The Army Alpha & Beta • Developed by the American Psychological Association. • Terman, Goddard, & Robert Yerkes were principle group heading up the project. • Yerkes organized and lead a staff of forty psychologist who produce the test in only two months. • 1.7 million tests administered during WWI

  11. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • The Army Alpha • The mother of all tests • 212 questions in MC and T/F format • Used to classify draftees into officer or enlisted ranks.

  12. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • The Army Beta • Used to classify illiterate draftees • Comprised mostly of pictures and diagrams.

  13. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • The testing explosion • Following the Army Alpha, intelligence testing became a multimillion-dollar industry. • The Army Alpha and other subsequent tests transformed the once cumbersome and costly methods of testing into a process that was easy, inexpensive, and commonly accepted.

  14. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • Voices of Dissent • Walter Lippman • Testing stamps a label, which, once applied, is difficult to remove. • Tests serve the prejudice and powerful. • Steven J. Gould • The Mismeasure of Man • Edwin Boring • What is intelligence?

  15. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • The past 50 years • Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, aka Title I. • Minimum Competency Testing (MCT). • Lake Woebegone Effect. • A Nation at Risk. • Standards based reforms. • WYTIWYG (from WYSIWYG).

  16. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • The past 50 years • National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), The Nations Report Card. • Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). • Inclusion.

  17. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing Reasons for using intelligence tests: • Reasonably good at predicting performance in school. • Mental abilities are very much an inherited trait (twin and adoption studies). • Mental measurement is useful, beneficial to society, and is one of psychologies greatest contributions to modern life.

  18. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • Concerns about Testing/Assessing • Test Anxiety • Categorizing & Labeling • Effects on Self-Concept • Self-Fulfilling Prophecies • Test Fairness/Bias

  19. A Brief History of Assessment & Testing • Concerns about Not Testing/Assessing • How do you know if a person is inclined to succeed? • How do you know if a person can really perform a function? • How do you choose between different people, organizations, services, and businesses?

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