Re-Envisioning the Bias and Sensitivity Review Process From a Culturally Sustaining and Antiracist Perspective

• In Event: Principles for Educational Testing, Data Inquiry, and Classroom Assessment to Support Culturally Sustaining Ecosystems

Abstract

The disruption of white supremacy must occur at every stage of the assessment development process – from construct articulation to score reporting. An important step in the assessment development process is the item review stage often referred to as Bias and Sensitivity Review. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA, & NCME, 2014) note that “Expert and sensitivity reviews can serve to guard against construct-irrelevant language and images, including those that may offend some individuals or subgroups, and against construct-irrelevant context that may be more familiar to some than others. Test publishers often conduct sensitivity reviews of all test material to detect and remove sensitive material from tests (e.g., text, graphics, and other visual representations within the test that could be seen as offensive to some groups and possibly affect the scores of individuals from these groups). Such reviews should be conducted before a test becomes operational” (Standard 3.3, p. 64).

In this paper and presentation, we argue that such an approach - as articulated in the Standards- to the item review process misses the opportunity to actively disrupt and push back against racism and cultural erasure– in other words, to be culturally sustaining and anti-racist. Bias and sensitivity guidelines that insist that all non-neutral content be removed, by default, are racist and serve to further marginalize minoritized students. If the assessment field is going to support educators’ efforts to engage in culturally sustaining and antiracist instructional practices then we must also re-envision our assessment development practices.

This shift in practices will require a complete re-thinking of the purpose and outcomes of the bias and sensitivity review process. We must move away from fear-based to justice-based and asset-based approaches to assessment that support culturally sustaining and antiracist pedagogical principles. To that end, this paper extends our previously published work, using Critical Race and Critical Whiteness Theory as a frame, to (a) identify common guidelines and/or recommendations that, even if unintentionally, center whiteness and/or the paradigm of the white dominant culture; (b) provide a new culturally sustaining and antiracist framing for developing and adhering to bias and sensitivity guidelines; and (c) recommend a set of bias and sensitivity principles that promote the affirmation of all students through a culturally sustaining and antiracist approach to assessment design, specifically item/task review.

Authors

• Jennifer Randall, University of Massachusetts

• Mariam Rashid, University of Massachusetts - Amherst