ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the challenges, similarities, and differences in sociocultural learning and development theories and in test score linking practices used by large-scale testing programs to support consistent interpretations of reported scores. These discussions indicate that although there are some consistencies, there are also considerable differences in the implications of these approaches for assessment design, for examinees’ ways of interacting with tests, and in score modeling. Three possibilities are presented for developing socioculturally responsive assessments that build on previously recommended types of responsiveness, especially in terms of the tradeoff assessment developers must make for broad comparability and local validity. These three possibilities resolve the tradeoff of comparability and validity in different ways, such as by defining a responsive test at the outset and using standardized procedures to support comparability, utilizing responsive assessments that keep inferences local, and linking responsive tests by relying on an abstract, expanded view of the construct being assessed. Frameworks for traditional linking methods can be expanded to incorporate different types of responsiveness and to clarify the score interpretations they support. The implications of these possibilities for assessment scores may inform other possible goals for assessments that may be socioculturally responsive and standardized to different degrees, goals which could address comparability, validity, social change, and equity of opportunities or outcomes.
