ABSTRACT
Assessments test what should be learned, while what is assessed impacts teaching and learning practices. This chapter focuses on this interdependency, but emphasizes that while some assessment practices are driving instructional practices, best learning practices must drive assessment design. The education research literature is rife with reasons, explanations, and excuses, but there is no doubt that standardized tests appeal to our sense of industrialization and competitive equality. State tests are used to determine student readiness for high school graduation; SATs are used to indicate undergraduate potential; GREs and a whole host of similar tests are similarly used to predict graduate program success. For designing an assessment, people need to consider two factors: how comprehensively the learning goals are assessed, and whether the test design assesses those goals appropriately and without bias. Assessment must complement the learning goals, and when it does not, assessment blocks growth toward learning goals, especially if there is a cultural emphasis on teaching to the test.
