Tonya R. Moon
Carolyn M. Callahan
Catherine M. Brighton
Carol A. Tomlinson

Educational reform efforts since the 1980s have all emphasized accountability in terms of student achievement and learning outcomes rather than process. As of this year, 49 out of 50 states (excluding Iowa) have mandated the implementation of statewide testing. As a result, high-stakes testing has become the focal point for evaluating student learning, with nearly all of the evaluative efforts dominated by the use of traditional objective assessments.

Much debate surrounds the effectiveness of using high-stakes tests as a tool for accountability purposes in terms of improved student achievement and performance. Some literature affirms that using tests for accountability purposes is one avenue for enhancing student performance. However, other literature indicates that the widespread use of statewide mandated tests negatively affects students, teachers, schools, and the quality of curriculum and instruction in the classroom.

While the use of high-stakes testing has focused teacher planning on specified, agreed upon state-level objectives, exclusive use of traditional assessment, often in the form of multiple-choice tests, has been judged to be a negative in middle school classrooms. In response to these criticisms, some measurement experts advocate the use of authentic assessments for their potential for increased validity.

The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented (NRC/GT) at the University of Virginia undertook the development of differentiated authentic assessments for classroom use that embodied key concepts, principles, generalizations, and processes critical to understanding in the disciplines of English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. In addition to the development of the assessments, a small-scale study was designed to investigate the psychometric attributes of the authentic assessments.

The results of the study provide evidence that authentic assessments for classroom purposes can be developed to provide reliable and valid information about student learning. In addition, results suggest that the authentic assessment can provide an accurate assessment of students’ success in achieving academic learning standards, with positive responses of both teachers and students to the authentic assessment experience.

Reference:

Development of Differentiated Performance Assessment Tasks for Middle School Classrooms
Tonya R. Moon
Carolyn M. Callahan
Catherine M. Brighton
Carol A. Tomlinson
 

Conclusions

1. High-stakes, standardized testing narrows curriculums and strains teacher-student relationships.
2. Multiple-choice, pencil-and-paper tests fail to deal with peripheral details or sub-skills; are incompatible with genuine knowledge, skills, and dispositions of disciplines; and fail to assess the extent to which a student has mastered the entire body of knowledge surrounding a concept.
3. Differentiated authentic assessment allows students to use community resources to enrich the learning experience, work on a task of value to a community, and yield a truer audience for authentic feedback.
4. Differentiated performance assessment fosters a deep understanding of the discipline as well as integration of knowledge and skills across disciplines, and allows teachers to better gain instructional information about students.
5. Authentic assessments can be used in middle school classrooms for accurate assessment of students’ success in achieving academic learning standards.