THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT

TLDR

School learning requires not only knowledge acquisition but also the restructuring of knowledge and cognitive skills, so educational achievement measures must be framed developmentally and account for student characteristics and contextual influences. The article examines how competence develops and how it can be measured through context‑dependent task performance. By comprehensively measuring relevant contextual factors, the authors mitigate construct‑irrelevant task difficulty and other influences that could compromise score meaning and actionable implications. Contextualized comprehensive assessment yields valid interpretations of ability and achievement scores, reduces interpretive and ethical burdens on test users, and improves test‑use validity.

Abstract

Because school learning entails not just accretion of knowledge but the structuring and restructuring of knowledge and cognitive skills, the conception and construction of educational achievement measures must be cast in developmental terms. And because student characteristics as well as social and educational experiences influence current performance, the interpretation and implications of educational achievement measures must be relative to intrapersonal and situational contexts. These points imply a strategy of comprehensive assessment in context that focuses on the processes and structures involved in subject‐matter competence as moderated in performance by personal and environmental influences. This article addresses in detail both the nature of developing competence and its measurement in terms of context‐dependent task performance. Construct‐irrelevant task difficulty that might jeopardize the meaning of test scores as well as construct‐irrelevant influences that might jeopardize implications for action are taken into account via the comprehensive measurement of relevant contextual factors. Comprehensive assessment in context thus facilitates valid interpretations of the meaning and implications of ability and achievement scores in particular instances, thereby lightening the interpretive and ethical burdens on test users and enhancing the validity of test use.