Expanding Views of Interpretation/Use Arguments
Item
Title
Expanding Views of Interpretation/Use Arguments
Abstract/Description
The author is deeply gratified by the commentators' thoughtful responses and finds almost nothing to disagree with in any of them. Each offers additional insights prompting further reflection. In drawing out just a few common themes, this brief rejoinder omits many important ideas from the individual contributions. As stated in his title, the author sought to explore how testing is "supposed" to improve schooling. He approached test validation from a measurement perspective, beginning with "intended" uses and interpretations set forth a priori in the interpretive argument relating testing applications to specific outcomes. After reviewing the comments, he is better attuned to some of the many ways this framing is incomplete. The author was pleased that the commentators also found his framing of direct and indirect testing purposes useful. Lane reprises evidence of beneficial indirect testing effects in several earlier large-scale assessment programs, and then considers how the evaluation of indirect testing purposes might be addressed by the new interstate assessment development consortia, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). She and most of the other commentators second his call for an expanded view of test validation. To "begin" test validation with investigations of indirect testing effects would be a significant challenge to conventional practice. The unintended effect of score inflation serves as an example. As Koretz observes, policy makers and testing sponsors have good reason to avoid serious investigations of score inflation and related unintended score effects. Investigating such effects can be expensive; it requires that test validation be continued after the first test administration, and, in the end, it is likely to bring the bad news that score gains have been overstated. In summary, the commentaries offer much to think about. Concerned researchers and educational practitioners both within and beyond the measurement field share a responsibility to continue exploring these important questions of testing mechanisms and their validation.
Author/creator
Date
In publication
Volume
11
Issue
1-2
Pages
68-70
Resource type
Background/Context
Medium
Print
Background/context type
Conceptual
IRE Approach/Concept
Open access/free-text available
No
ISSN
1536-6367
Citation
Haertel, E. (2013). Expanding Views of Interpretation/Use Arguments. Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives, 11(1–2), 68–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/15366367.2013.790729
Resource status/form
Published Text
Scholarship genre
Interchange/Reply
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