ABSTRACT
How can you have a constructivist assessment tool? At first glance this term sounds like an oxymoron. Assessment smacks of traditional approaches that classify people against normative samples of comparative data. These approaches emphasise what is objective and statistically measurable. They favour reductionist thinking over the individual’s unique world view and search for meaning (Oxenford, 2001). By contrast, constructivism is grounded in the generation of meaning relevant to the uniqueness of an individual life (Peavy, 1998). Users of “assessment tools” are thus called on to question their own assumptions behind the processes and methods that they use.
