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Alternative Interpretations of Alternative Assessments: Some Validity Issues in Educational Performance Assessments
Author(s) -
Bachman Lyle F.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
educational measurement: issues and practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.158
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1745-3992
pISSN - 0731-1745
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-3992.2002.tb00095.x
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , construct validity , construct (python library) , computer science , task (project management) , language assessment , alternative assessment , test (biology) , educational assessment , psychology , management science , artificial intelligence , psychometrics , mathematics education , programming language , clinical psychology , paleontology , management , economics , biology
The use of alternative assessments has led many researchers to reexamine traditional views of test qualities, especially validity. Because alternative assessments generally aim at measuring complex constructs and employ rich assessment tasks, it becomes more difficult to demonstrate (a) the validity of the inferences we make and (b) that these inferences extrapolate to target domains beyond the assessment itself. An approach to addressing these issues from the perspective of language testing is described. It is then argued that in both language testing and educational assessment we must consider the roles of both language and content knowledge, and that our approach to the design and development of performance assessments must be both construct‐based and task‐based. 1