Measurement and Testing Experts Discuss Issues Facing Education

Are testing and assessment really about testing and assessment or about improving education? Are teachers teaching too much to specific tests? Should the public believe everything it hears about education? How do we hold higher education accountable?

Measurement and assessment experts from around the country raised these questions—and others—when they met recently on the ACT campus in Iowa City. They participated in “Current Challenges in Educational Testing,” the third biennial invitational conference sponsored by The University of Iowa Center for Advanced Studies in Measurement and Assessment (CASMA) and ACT.

“Education faces many important testing and measurement issues,” said Robert Brennan, CASMA director and professor of psychological and quantitative foundations in the UI College of Education. “The conference was an opportunity to learn from nationally known speakers about some of today’s most salient issues in testing.”

Susan Valentine, ACT vice president, Professional Development Services (at podium), introduces members of a panel on performance testing simulations during a conference at ACT. Sitting at the table, from left, are Lynn Anderson, Joint Commission on Allied Health Personnel in Ophthalmology; Dick DeVore, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants; and Joe Crick, National Board of Medical Examiners. Each presented information about how their organization tests professionals in their fields.

Richard L. Ferguson, ACT CEO and chairman of the board, and UI President Sally Mason welcomed 200 participants, including UI faculty and students, College of Education alumni, staff from ACT and other testing companies, faculty from colleges nationwide, administrators, and superintendents.

W. James Popham, professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, delivered the event’s keynote address, “Instructional Sensitivity: A Looming Challenge for Measurement Mavens.” Other speakers and panelists presented a wide variety of viewpoints for extended discussion. The conference included a session on performance testing simulations by presenters from the National Board of Medical Examiners, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and the Joint Commission on Allied Health Personnel in Ophthalmology.

Demonstrating Accountability

Margaret “Peg” Miller, professor in the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, and Ernest Pascarella, professor, Education Policy and Leadership Studies, UI, discussed issues relating to higher education accountability. Miller noted the recent formation of the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA), an initiative designed to help four-year public colleges and universities demonstrate accountability and stewardship to the public, measure educational outcomes to identify effective educational practices, and assemble information that is accessible, understandable, and comparable.

The VSA information will include characteristics of institutions and students, costs of attendance, student engagement with the learning process, and core educational outcomes. The information is intended for students, families, policymakers, campus faculty and staff, the general public, and other higher education stakeholders.

“Campuses really need some kind of external benchmark to make meaning of their results and give them a sense of reality in terms of where they stand in relation to their larger goals,” said Miller. “The challenges we face are both ethical and political—to tell the truth clearly and loudly to the right audiences. These are hard things to do. In the twenty-first century, advanced learning is a more vital economic and civic asset than ever before. It’s the key to individual prosperity.”

Pascarella said his take on accountability in higher education comes from spending 30 years synthesizing and estimating the effects of postsecondary education on students. “How do we take into account the important impact of what happens outside the classroom?” he asked.

“It strikes me that many of the challenges in higher education assessment and accountability are cultural, philosophical, and legal, not just technical and methodological,” he said.

Because higher education is substantially different from elementary and secondary education, assessments of it must be treated differently. “How does multi-institutional assessment honor the extent of diversity in American postsecondary institutions?” Pascarella asked. “Traditionally it has been one of our strengths that we have different kinds of institutions.”

Defining Purposes of Testing

Three national educational media representatives presented their perspectives on challenges to testing.

Scott Jaschik, an editor at Inside Higher Ed, focused on why there is skepticism surrounding testing and assessment.

“There is a relationship between testing and assessment and educational improvement. In theory, testing and assessment define weaknesses—student, state, and school—and we fix them. But I actually see very little of that happening in reality,” he said. “I’m not sure people perceive interest in assessment as being accompanied by interest in actual improvements, especially improvements that cost money.”

Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed (at podium) was one of three journalists who offered media perspectives on challenges to testing at the CASMA–ACT invitational conference. Also presenting were (sitting at table, from left) Stephen Sawchuk of Education Daily and Lynn Olson of Education Week. At right is Cynthia B. Schmeiser, president and chief operating officer, ACT Education Division, who introduced the journalists.

Lynn Olson, managing editor for special projects at Education Week, said that much newspaper coverage about education is negative because there’s a general feeling that teachers are teaching too much to specific tests. “Tests are viewed by many as a hammer to punish teachers and students,” she said.

“If tests are to be used to improve instruction, teachers, students, and parents need examples of exemplary work so they understand what the targets are. Test scores don’t often mean much to parents, students, or teachers in ways that lead to action,” said Olson.

Stephen Sawchuk, staff writer for Education Daily, noted that the real end users of tests should be teachers. “Very little about what teachers are supposed to do in the classroom comes from the data generated by No Child Left Behind tests,” he said.

Teachers want assessments that align with the educational goals they have set for their classrooms. They don’t find accountability information all that helpful and want data that actually helps them improve instruction, he said.

Test users also provided their perspectives on challenges to testing. They included Doug Christensen, commissioner, Nebraska Department of Education, and Casey Marks, director, National Council of State Boards of Nursing.

“Testing has created a culture that worries more about the test than it does about the data it gets from the test,” said Christensen. “We talk about the validity and reliability of a test, but that’s not really the issue. The issue is do you get data that is of some value? If that data isn’t student based, standards based, or based on what is taught, it’s not really information I can use. Testing is not the tool—data is the tool.”

Marks agreed. “Testing is often seen as a hurdle to overcome, rather than a measurement,” he said.

The conference concluded with a panel of experts from major testing companies leading a discussion of hot topics in educational measurement and testing, citing many personal examples.

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