Table of contents

MERGING TESTING AND ASSESSMENT PRACTICES WITH CHILDREN AND YOUTH

Thomas Oakland 

Uploaded June 2009

Note:
When citing this reading, please reference it as follows:
Oakland, T. Merging testing and assessment practices with children and youth. In M. Born, C.D. Foxcroft & Butter, R. (Eds.), Online Readings in Testing and Assessment, International Test Commission, http://www.intestcom.org/orta

Some of the information utilized in this article was drawn from Oakland (1995). Readers are encouraged to consult this publication for a more extended discussion of these and related issues.

Reviewed by Cheryl Foxcroft

Historical Overview

Conditions that characterize testing and assessment activities during the first decade of the twenty?first century reflect, in part, extensions of conditions that historically have characterized these activities. Thus, a brief review of some historical events and trends as well as current and emerging qualities are needed before speculating as to conditions we may influence test development and use prominently in the future.

The history of educational and psychological assessment is long and its development uneven. The birth of assessment in the behavioral sciences occurred in China at least 3,000 years ago. Measures of problem?solving, visual spatial perception, divergent thinking, creativity and other qualities that reflect important talents and behaviors were used somewhat commonly. Later, under the Sui dynasty (581?618), a civil service examination system consisting of three parts was initiated: regular examinations stressing classical cultural knowledge, a committee examination before the emperor stressing planning and administrative features, and a third examination on martial arts (Wang, 1993). Forms of this assessment system continued in China until 1905.

Following these initial efforts in China, subsequent developments in testing generally are unremarkable until the middle of the nineteenth century. Apparently few if any other countries initiated civil service examinations similar to those utilized in China. In addition, formal education in most countries was limited to the sons of the wealthy and often provided by tutors, thus minimizing the need for educational testing.

Various social and economic conditions occurred during the period from the 1870 to the 1920s within Western Europe and North America that were to significantly impact the testing of children and youth. Four critical needs emerged during this period for which public support often was provided: to educate more children at higher levels, to ensure quality control of education, to ensure children and others were cared for socially and were not abused, and to provide special services for those who exhibited severe disorders. Educators, psychologists, judges, social workers, politicians, and others increasingly utilized tests as an important source of information while addressing these needs.

During this same period the discipline of biology was evolving, spinning off the emerging science of psychology. Wundt and others in Germany and Galton in England developed a number of pioneering measures used largely for research purposes. Tests developed by Binet and other pioneers in France had a different goal: to classify children in need of special education services and to provide services to them. Their test development activities and those of others coincided with the emergence of the four critical needs discussed in the previous paragraph.

Traditional General Purposes of Test Use with Children and Youth.

The success of the early efforts to develop tests provided confidence that reliable and valid measures of important human qualities or characteristics could be developed. Professionals working in the behavioral sciences found tests and other methods to be useful for various purposes.

The use of tests to facilitate research and to classify behaviors remains important. Over the years additional purposes have been added: the use of tests to describe current characteristics and attainment (or achievement), screen for special needs, assist in guidance and counseling, diagnose disabling disorders, place students in special programs, evaluate progress, and determine whether students should be admitted to a programme/college/university, retained (in a grade), or promoted. Tests also are used for various administrative and planning purposes.

Testing As An Universal Enterprise

The amount of literature on test use with children and youth is considerable in the United States (e.g., Aiken, 1988; Anastasi, 1988; Cattell. & Johnson, 1986; Cohen et al., 1988; Cronbach, 1984; Mitchell, 1985; Salvia & Yesseldyke, 1988; Sattler, 1988; Sweetland & Keyser, 1986; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1990) and available from many other countries including Australia (Richie, 1989), China (LaVoie, 1989a, 1989b; Zhang, 1988a, 1988b, 1988c), Greece (Fatouros, 1984), Hungary (Klein, 1980), Israel (Raviv, 1989), The Netherlands (Evers & Zaal, 1982; Laak & Raad), the Orient (Oakland & Hu, 1989), United Kingdom (Farrell, et al., 1989), Russia (Holowinsky, 1984?85; Pambookian & Holowisnky, 1987), Turkey (Oner, 1992; Kagitcibasi & Oney, 1992) and others (Aiken, 1987).

The growth of educational and psychological tests and other types of measures has been somewhat amazing. There are an estimated 5,000 standardized tests, mainly in English and constructed in the United States and Western Europe. Most of these measures are not used widely.

An international survey of tests used with children and youth in 44 countries, not including the United States, identified 455 tests used frequently (Oakland & Hu, 1989; 1991; 1992; Hu & Oakland, 1991). Some of the more important and general findings of this survey are summarized below.

Measures of intelligence, personality, and achievement are used most commonly. About 50 percent of the tests were developed within other countries and imported for use. Foreign developed tests tend to be used more commonly than locally developed tests. Validity studies are available on between 50 and 70 percent of the tests and reliability estimates on 50 to 60 percent. Local norms are available on 80 percent of achievement tests and about 60 percent of intelligence and personality tests. At least 16 professional groups commonly administer tests; their levels of post?secondary education correlate strongly with their levels of competency in test use.

Two-thirds of the countries report an especially critical need for both group and individual tests of achievement, intelligence, vocational interests and aptitudes, social development, and personality, as well as more moderate needs for entrance measures for primary, secondary, and tertiary school, perceptual, and motor development. Respondents also indicated the classifications of children for which tests are needed. Virtually all of the responding countries reported the need for tests that assess qualities important for those who are mentally retarded, blind, deaf, learning disabled, slower learners, emotionally and socially disturbed, physically impaired, and gifted. The need for tests for the learned disabled is most critical.

As expected, test use is not uniform throughout the world. Highest test use occurs within highly industrialized nations. In contrast, lowest test utilization was reported by the least developed countries. Foreign developed tests are used overwhelmingly in the Middle East and least developed nations.

Some Conditions That Impact Test Use

Conditions both external to professionals and internal to them impact on test development and use. External qualities include a country's social, political, religious, and economic conditions, qualities that strongly influence values, needs, resources and that in turn impact testing. Testing is stronger in countries that value technology and individual differences, utilize resources based on notions of meritocracy instead of egalitarianism, have well developed educational systems, have the commercial and technological resources needed to produce and distribute tests, and provide legal protection of copyright (e.g., the photocopying of test materials is illegal). Countries lacking these qualities generally develop and use fewer tests.

The presence of these qualities will strongly impact the status of testing, particularly in those countries that have few test resources. Many countries lacking these qualities can be expected to remain underdeveloped with respect to test development and use. Thus, current data suggest continued under?development in many countries, perhaps through much of this century.

In addition, various qualities internal to our disciplines and professions impact on testing. Thus, we have considerable control over the following needs that, if achieved, will further test development and use: to broaden the behavioural sciences and related professions beyond their current narrow perspective that emphasize theory and research largely from Western European and North American; to prepare additional psychometricians and other scholars, particularly in developing nations, with advanced skills and abilities in testing and assessment, and to promote their stable employment within institutions that encourage and supports both teaching and research; to advance knowledge and use of measurement models and methods; to develop and promote the use of suitable standards for test development and use within and across various cultures; and to develop assessment methods that accurately assess qualities that are both modifiable and enhance child growth and development.

Although space does not permit a discussion of each of these conditions (see Oakland, 1995 for a more extended discussion), some of the above points are briefly discussed below in an attempt to emphasize qualities that will impact the future of testing.

External Conditions That Need Attention

The future of testing depends, in part, on positive attitudes toward testing held by the public. Professions whose work is dependent on and enhanced by test use should not remain neutral with respect to general conditions within countries that impact on testing. They must be on the vanguard or front line, creating conditions that help ensure that tests are used in ways that serve important social goals and foster positive attitudes.

For example, we should work to ensure tests are not used to restrict educational or vocational opportunities, to rigidly shape school curricula, to invade one's personal privacy, to place persons in categories that are dehumanizing and developmentally restrictive, and to denigrate the dignity and pride of classes of people - typically those from lower classes and minority groups.

Furthermore, public opposition to test use is legitimate when test practices are inappropriate. Inappropriate practices include failure to test persons in their dominant language, using invalid and poorly normed tests, and making inferences about children based on meager information. Test specialists must demonstrate that tests serve those who are tested, not merely those who test or the institutions that employ them.

In addition, professions must strongly oppose efforts that limit or restrict the legitimate uses of tests when these restrictions and limitations are unjustified and based on anti?testing attitudes. To this end, professional associations and professionals need to properly educate the public and their colleagues regarding the strengths and limitations of test use and to address false allegations that improperly restrict test use (e.g., false allegations that tests are biased against minority children, falsely label children, and create false and negative expectations regarding their futures).

The increased availability of computer?based testing, while expanding the range and flexibility of test use, poses some potentially ominous implications for societies and professions that rely on test use. Large scale test use by industry and institutions, as well as self?testing, will be encouraged, with attendant problems associated with test misuse and incorrect interpretations. Professionals will be less able to monitor test development and use; professional and industry standards are less likely to be followed.

In addition, quality tests are developed within a commercial climate in which those who conceive, develop, and market tests can be expected to assume related costs and receive related benefits. Conditions that impede these essential commercial conditions, including the wide-spread photo-copying and other forms of copyright infringement (e. g., the free distribution of commercially developed tests through computers), prevent the development of quality tests and the provision of proper professional services.

Internal Conditions That Will Impact on the Future of Testing

Internationally developed and approved standards for test development and use are needed. Within most countries, issues impacting test development, estimating reliability and validity, the nature of test norms, test user qualifications, and the commercial distribution of tests are governed more by convenience and tradition rather than professional standards. If test standards are used, those developed within the United States (American Educational Research Association, 1999) and the United Kingdom (British Psychological Society, 1987) are used most commonly.

However, these standards were developed to address needs in their countries rather than to meet the needs of a broader international community. Furthermore, many professionals in most countries are unaware of these standards; thus, testing practices generally are not guided by them. Test use within and across cultures can be expected to increase. Therefore, professionally developed and validated standards are needed to guide test translations, to equilibrate a test's cognitive qualities, and to help ensure similarity in reliability and validity estimates.

As previously noted, in those countries with well developed testing resources, tests generally are used widely and effectively to facilitate research, classify behaviors, describe current characteristics and attainment or achievement, screen for special needs, assist in guidance and counseling, diagnose disabling disorders, place students in special programs, evaluate progress, determine whether students should be admitted, retained, or promoted, and for various administrative and planning purposes. In addition, professionals who use tests are being asked to do more. They are being asked to rethink some of the basic premises that have guided test development and use. In short, they are being asked to design assessment methods that focus on learning and other important developmental processes, uncover hidden talents and abilities, and enhance learning and other forms of personal growth and development.

Table 1
Some Differences Between Traditional and Emerging Trends in Student Assessment

International Comparative Studies: An Emphasis on Education

Globalization is readily apparent in business, communication, political and entertainment arenas as well as in education. Educators are well aware of an international focus. Themes emphasizing education for all, the importance of educating girls and boys equally, and characterizing education as a basic human right emphasize this point. Policy makers increasingly view the quality of education in their country as a key reflection of its current and future stability and prosperity. The quality of a country’s elementary and secondary education clearly is linked to its ability to compete in an international arena. Interest in educational improvement ranges from the World Bank (Kellaghan & Greaney, 1992; Lockheed, 1992) to local school officials. Tests that assess common curricula across countries yet avoid test bias are critical to these efforts.

Countries increasingly realize investment in education is one of the principal methods by which they can become or remain competitive and improve the welfare of their citizens. Educational change and test use increasingly are seen as inter-related, leading to increased recognition as to the value of test use for research and practice, developing methods to improve test use within and between cultures, and designing assessment systems to support educational initiatives. Two examples are provided.

The use of achievement and ability tests to assist in research and evaluation efforts within developing countries can serve five main goals: to monitor progress toward national goals, to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of specific educational policies, to hold schools and governmental agencies accountable for performance, to identify students for further education and to certify their competence, and to facilitate teacher assessment of student performance (Lockheed, 1991).

Second, the nature of international programs to enhance development within developing countries is being revised. Efforts to promote international development typically focused on raw materials, labor, and capital investment to improve a country's abilities to manufacture and in other ways produce products for local and foreign consumption. Current and future efforts increasingly will focus on ways to promote and utilize cognitive abilities and knowledge as these qualities replace raw materials, labor, and capital investment as the basis for production and a quality lifestyle. Knowledge is viewed as forming the foundation for a country's vitality. Knowledge must be produced, conveyed to others, adapted, and used effectively. A country's success during the next century will be determined by its ability to acquire and produce knowledge, convey it to others, and adapt and use it efficiently. Test use is directly tied to these efforts.

Many countries are examining their educational policies, programs, and practices. Two questions commonly are asked: to what extent are students reaching a nation’s educational goals, and how do students within one country compare with those from other countries? Regional and international studies of civic education (Torney-Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, & Schulz, 2001), mathematics (Lapointe, Mead, & Askew, 1992), science (Lapointe, Askew & Mead, 1992), and other academic subjects provide information relevant to the second question (Medrich & Griffith, 1992; Schiller, 2000). The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) is leading this effort that compares education globally. Headquartered in Amsterdam, IEA is an independent cooperative consortium of research institutions and educational agencies from more than 50 countries.

International Test Standards and Guidelines

Test development and use often are strengthened by the employment of standards or guidelines, including those that address conceptual and technical dimensions of test development and use, ethical issues associated with test development and use, and professional qualities needed by those who use tests. These issues are reviewed below.

Technical Standards for Test Development and Use: Standards for educational and psychological testing (American Educational Research Association, 1999) and its previous editions have served as the authoritative source for test development and use in the United States since 1954. The current edition discusses issues pertaining to test construction, evaluation, and documentation (e.g., validity, reliability, scales, norms, test administration and scoring), fairness in testing (e.g., rights and responsibilities of test-takers, testing persons from diverse linguistic backgrounds and those with disabilities), and testing applications (e.g., test use in psychology, education, employment, credentialing, and program evaluation). These standards and those from the Canadian Psychological Association (1987) and other sources (e.g., Joint Committee on Testing Practices, 1993; Lindsay, 1996; Koene, 1997; Kendall, et. al., 1997) often find acceptance from psychologists in other countries in which national standards have not been established.

Ethical Standards: Ethical principles and standards governing test development and use typically are embedded within a country’s broader ethics code (American Psychological Association, 1992,2002; British Psychological Society, 1998a; Lindsay, 1996). Separate ethical standards governing only test development and use could not be located. In addition, scholarship that discusses ethical issues specific to adapted tests is meager.

Possible implications of six ethical principles and thirty standards from the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychology and Code of Conduct (1992) in reference to eleven stakeholders who use adapted tests is discussed elsewhere (Oakland, 2003). Non-adherence to copyright provisions may be the most troublesome ethical (and legal) issue. Copyright violations occur when tests either are photocopied or are adapted for use in another country without the consent of the test’s author and publisher.

Many of the world’s largest testing companies are making its tests available through the Internet. The availability of published materials, including tests, through the Internet further invites non-adherence to copyright protection. The more than 150 countries that are signatures to the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright and Performance and Phonograms Treaties differ considerably in their adoption and enforcement of the treaty’s provisions. The use of encryption and enveloping technologies together with copyright management information on test products are being used to help address this growing problem (Thiemann, 1998).

Professional Qualification Standards: Standards discussing professional qualities needed by those who use tests are found in various sources (e.g., Eyde, et al; 1988; British Psychological Society, 1998b,1999 a, and 1999b). In addition, the International Test Commission developed international guidelines for the fair and ethical use of tests (Bartram, 1998; 2001). They are discussed later.

Efforts by the International Test Commission to advance testing: The International Test Commission was formed in 1976 in response to a need to establish regional or international standards for the purchase and use of tests (Oakland, et al, 2001). Subsequent efforts include the setting of standards, sponsoring international and regional conferences, and promoting scholarship.

In response to a growing need and interest in adapting educational and psychological tests, the International Test Commission developed guidelines for adapting educational and psychological tests (Hambleton, 1994; Muniz & Hambleton, 1997; van de Vijver & Hambleton, 1996; Hambleton, Merenda, & Spielberger, 2003). Test adaptations are needed when tests are used in countries other than those in which they were developed, when tests are designed for use in two or more countries in which cross-national practices occur, and when they are adapted for use with persons who differ in language, culture, or other important qualities.

The International Test Commission developed International Guidelines for Test Use to help promote suitable test use (Bartram, 1998; 2001; International Test Commission, 2000). These Guidelines address issues important to ethics (e.g., test security, confidentiality) and professional competence (using tests that are technically sound and have potential utility, fair use of tests) from which standards for training, and test use, and user qualifications can be derived. These Guidelines have been endorsed by the European Federation of Professional Psychologists Associations Standing Committee on Tests and Testing and are being translated for use in a number of countries.

The International Test Commission has had a long-standing commitment to publish a scholarly journal. Its ITC Bulletin was published from 1974 to 1992. The Bulletin was incorporated within the European Journal of Psychological Assessment between 1993 and 1999. Its International Journal of Testing, initiated in 2001, is likely to become the flagship international journal on testing.

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Website Addresses of Possible Interest

Adult literacy and life skills international study: www.nces.ed.glv/suveys/all

International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement: www.iea.nl

International Test Commission: http://www.intestcom.org

Publications on testing in Latin America (in Spanish): www.grade.org.pe/gtee-preal

Reports of the "laboratorio" on learning in eleven Latin American countries: http://www.unesco.cl

Reports on testing in Chile (in Spanish): www.mineduc.cl/simce

Reports on testing in Brazil (in Portuguese): www.inep.gov.br

Discussion point

Consider the general purposes for which testing is used for children and the youth that were presented in this reading. To what extent do these purposes apply in your country? Can you think of additional purposes for which testing can be used when working with children and the youth?

Author information

Thomas Oakland
Professor, UF Research Foundation
Professor, Department of Educational Psychology
College of Education
University of Florida
1410 Norman Hall
PO Box 117047
Gainesville FL 32611
352-273-4283
Fax: 352-392-5929
oakland@coe.ufl.edu 

Degrees earned:
Ph.D., Educational Psychology, Indiana University, 1967
M.S., Educational Psychology, Indiana University, 1965
B.A., History, Lawrence College, 1962

Biographical sketch

Professor Thomas Oakland has demonstrated excellence in his profession through his national and international scholarship and service.  His research has contributed in the areas of assessment—especially that of minority children, school-related disorders, children’s adaptive behavior, test development, and legal and ethical issues.  Oakland’s scholarly productivity is remarkable for its quality, consistency, and longevity, and many of his publications are found in the leading peer-reviewed journals and most prestigious books.  He has also served on 26 editorial boards—12 nationally and 14 internationally. In recognition of his scholarship, Oakland has received various national and international awards, including the American Psychological Association (APA) Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Advancement of Psychology, distinguished service awards from the APA International School Psychology Association and National Association of School Psychologists, the Willard Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award In Recognition of Lifetime Achievement in the Practice of School Psychology from the Florida Association of School Psychologists and the UF International Educator of the Year Award.  Oakland has served as the APA president of the Division of School Psychology, Policy and Planning Board, International School Psychology Association, and member of the Ethics Code Task Force. He has also served as President of the International Test Commission and is a long-standing member of the OTC Council