Designing Personalized Socioculturally Responsive Assessments of Digital Literacies

• In Event: Circling Back and Moving Forwards in Digital Literacies Research

Abstract

As populations become increasingly diverse and follow a growing number of life trajectories, assessment methodologies and approaches must adapt to move away from historical models of standardization toward greater individuation and contextualization to better measure what learners know and can do given their current knowledge, skills, and abilities. This poster reviews historical and contemporary theory and research on personalized and socioculturally responsive approaches to digitally based performance assessment and applies these perspectives toward the assessment of digital literacies. The authors highlight three examples of recent research efforts to develop and examine evidence from scenario-based assessments (SBAs) of digital literacies as use cases for extending and evaluating theory around personalized socioculturally responsive assessments. These examples include (1) the articulation of design principles for developing culturally relevant SBAs emerging from iterative cycles of user-centered research and development; (2) an empirical examination of group differences in performance on SBA tasks with varying degrees of cultural relevance for Black and non-Black students; and (3) an investigation of how self-report measures of prior knowledge and lived experiences can add predictive value to explain variation in SBA performance. These examples show the promise and potential of personalized socioculturally responsive SBAs to not only engage students and support their assessment performances by aligning content to students’ backgrounds and experiences, but also to incorporate and encourage critique, reflection, cultural competence, and community action into scenario designs. The poster concludes with a discussion of future directions for advancing an equity-focused research agenda around assessment of digital literacies, in terms of research, practice, and policy.

Authors

• Jesse R. Sparks, Educational Testing Service

• Zuowei Wang, Educational Testing Service

• Tenaha P. O'Reilly, Educational Testing Service

• Eowyn P. O'Dwyer, Rutgers University