Systems of Coherence and Resonance: Assessment for Education and Assessment of Education

Abstract

The source chapters in this volume raise issues that collectively address the question of coherence within systems of assessment and accountability: what dimensions define coherence such that practical development efforts can hope to realize it; to what extent can assessments designed to address the needs of classroom practitioners serve the interests of those who work some distance from the classroom; and what design elements need to be addressed (and how should they be addressed) to maximize utility across levels of the system? There is a lengthy history to this discussion. Nearly twenty years ago, LeMahieu and Wallace (1986) explored the conditions that best enabled assessments for what they termed clinical uses in contrast to those that addressed evaluative ones. Cole (1984) similarly explored whether assessments constructed for accountability purposes could ever be appropriate and effective for instructional uses. More recently, Black and Wiliam (1998), Shepard (2000), and Chappuis and Stiggins (2002) all examined similar questions. They explored what has variously been termed clinical versus evaluative assessment, instructional versus accountability testing, classroom versus large-scale assessment, or in its most contemporary form, assessment for education versus assessment of education. Whatever the terminology, the issue concerns the coherence and compatibility of assessments intended to inform intervention on behalf of the growth and development of students as opposed to assessments that inform judgments about the accomplishment or status of individuals, programs, schools, or systems. While each of these researchers examined this issue from a different perspective and thus illuminated a portion of the considerations