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Chapter XIV: The Evolution of the National Assessment of Educational Progress: Coherence with Best Practice

From its inception in the late 1960s, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been innovative. The scorable elements of NAEP assessments were initially referred to as "exercises" rather than items, in part because NAEP has always included tasks and activities that looked quite unlike typical objective test items, but also as a reflection of its measurement philosophy, in which NAEP is not seen as a test. Its goal has always been to show what children actually know or can do, not just to rank them relative to one another. Each assessment question or exercise is included because it represents some significant learning outcome, because it is important in its own right, not just for its contribution to a total score. Consistent with this philosophy, the designers of NAEP questions and tasks have adapted or invented a wide variety of exercise formats to measure the broadest possible range of learning outcomes, free from the usual test design criterion that, other things being equal, each item should have the highest possible correlation with the total score or with some external criterion to maximize reliability or criterion-related validity. Alternatives to objective paper-and-pencil testing figure prominently in current proposals for educational reform. It is widely held that overreliance on multiple-choice and similar item formats has led to curricula and instructional methods that encourage learning isolated bits of information and mechanically applying isolated skills, at the expense of more complex reasoning and meaningful problem solving. The solution proposed by advocates of assessment reform is to create tests that we would want teachers to teach to. High-stakes tests, those that have significant consequences for schools, teachers, and students,