Conceptualizing Valid Measurement of Creativity in Collaborative, Ill-Structured Games

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 12:40 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Test Validity Research and Evaluation (Table 34)

Abstract

Games offer a valuable tool for assessing creativity, collaboration, and other complex skills by reproducing dynamic, real-world tasks. More challenging tasks allow multiple pathways to success (i.e., ill-structured; Jonassen, 2011); however, such activities are often incompatible with traditional psychometric measurement approaches. The contextualized, interdependent activities align better with a sociocultural approach to validity (Moss, 1998). There is no accepted framework for assessment of collaborative, ill-structured games or their manifestation in military education: wargames. Building from Toulmin’s (1958) argumentation structure and evidence-centered design (ECD; Mislevy et al., 2003), this paper constructs a validity argument for assessing creativity in collaborative, ill-structured games. Synthesizing multiple literatures, the argument specifies key claims, evidence, and interrelationships that facilitate a dialogical interpretation of learning and performance.

Author

• Kathleen Kuehn, National Defense University