ABSTRACT
Assessment as we know it in education today is in large measure a product of 20th-century thinking, and has been greatly influenced by conceptions of the educability of individuals and of the functions of education that had currency at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. At that time, the prevailing thinking in education and psychology was guided by such beliefs as the fixed nature of intelligence and the limited educability of low-status populations such as recent immigrants and the descendants of slaves. These views were also influenced by the limited opportunities for schooling that existed in that era, and the limited need for advanced levels of education in order for individuals to fulfill their responsibilities as productive members of society.
