Assessing What Matters: Can Curriculum-Embedded Performance Assessments Be Valid Measures of Student Learning?

• In Event: 63.084 - Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: 63.084-3 - Validity and Construction in Assessment of Student Learning

Abstract

The disconnect between large-scale external assessments and the enacted curriculum is often minimized as schools and teachers are ranked, punished and rewarded based on accountability policies that depend heavily on these external assessments. This paper examines results from a 2012-2013 study of curriculum-embedded performance assessments, that is, assessments that are more directly aligned with the taught curricula and are embedded within units of study, most often as summative assessments at the end of a unit. This study raises the question of whether a more balanced assessment system – one that includes both external measures and curriculum-embedded measures – would be a more fair and just assessment system for students and teachers.

Authors

• Ruth Chung Wei, Stanford University

• Ken Mathew Cor, University of Alberta