Assessing the Thinking Curriculum: New Tools for Educational Reform
Assessing the Thinking Curriculum: New Tools for Educational Reform
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评估思维课程：教育改革的新工具
DOI：
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发表时间：
1992
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
D. Resnick
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
L. Resnick;D. Resnick
在美国，教育改革和考试紧密相连。考试成绩标志着改革的必要性，这体现在人们对高考和标准化考试分数下降的关注，对美国人在国际比较中表现不佳的关注，以及对我们国家评估中某些项目不及格的学生比例的关注。考试也被广泛视为提高教育水平的手段。要求美国学校提高成绩的呼声几乎总是伴随着学校考试数量的增加。新的考试或对已有的考试进行更积极的审查经常被开出处方，既是作为相关公众的信息来源，也是作为一种“质量控制”的形式，并激励教育工作者和学生更好地表现。考试和教育改革之间的这种联系并不新鲜--至少从19世纪末开始，这就是美国学校改进努力的一个特征(D.P.Resnick，1982)。在每一轮新的改革中，考试理论和实践都得到了提炼和细化。然而，考试在这个国家的教育生活中无处不在，我们使用的考试工具在技术上往往如此优雅，以至于很难想象会以不同的方式进行。一些人声称测试阻碍了某些社会群体的机会，还有一些人指出测试评估的人类能力范围有限，每当测试的数量和可见度增加时，就会出现对测试和测试的抱怨。这些抱怨有时会导致考试的修改，但很少有人持续或广泛地考虑到这样一种可能性，即使用过去一个世纪发展起来的考试技术的想法本身可能不利于教育改革的真正目标。
In America, educational reform and testing are intimately linked. Test scores signal the need for reform, as evidenced by the attention paid to declining scores on college entrance exams and standardized tests, to Americans’ weak performances on international comparisons, and to the percentages of students failing certain kinds of items on our national assessments. Tests are also widely viewed as instruments for educational improvement. Calls for better performance by American schools are almost always accompanied by increases in the amounts of testing done in the schools. New tests, or more active scrutiny of tests already in place, are frequently prescribed, both as a source of information for a concerned public and as a form of “quality control” and an incentive to better performance by educators and students. This link between testing and efforts at educational reform is not new—it has been a feature of efforts to improve American schools since at least the end of the nineteenth century (D. P. Resnick 1982). In each new round of reform, testing theory and practice have been refined and elaborated. Tests are so ubiquitous in this country’s educational life, however, and the test instruments we use are often so technically elegant, that it is difficult to imagine proceeding in a different way. Complaints about testing and tests, from those who claim that tests block opportunities for certain social groups and those who point to the limited range of human competence assessed by the tests, bubble up whenever the amount and visibility of testing increase. These complaints sometimes lead to modifications of tests, but there is rarely sustained or widespread consideration of the possibility that the very idea of using test technology as it has developed over the past century may be inimical to the real goals of educational reform.