ABSTRACT
As a contribution to considering ‘what counts as evidence’, this chapter will address testing and other formal assessment procedures, looking in some detail at the kinds of evidence they can provide. In evaluating children’s progress, some accepted measure of their attainment is essential, and many research studies make use of test scores as part of their findings. Similarly, the great majority of public debates about raising standards in literacy take for granted the nature of the instruments by which those standards are measured.
