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How Is Testing Supposed to Improve Schooling? Some Reflections

In “How Is Testing Supposed to Improve Schooling?” Edward Haertel has proposed a framework for thinking about the mechanisms by which testing might improve the various educational processes undertaken in schools. The framework seems to me to be quite general (I use the word “general” here in its mathematical sense of including all cases) since I cannot think of any mechanisms that could not be easily accommodated within the framework. The distinction between direct and indirect purposes or mechanisms is also useful, although I am not sure that these are the right terms to use. I can see that, from a psychometric standpoint, it may seem that mechanisms that require a test score might seem more direct, whereas the fact that students prepare for a test and, thus, learn more may well be an indirect benefit. However, from a lay perspective, a case could easily be made that the labels should be precisely the other way round. Any benefit that accrues to the test, whether a score is generated or not, could be seen as far more direct than a mechanism that needs to work via a test score. Indeed, from what we know, it seems at least possible, if not likely, that the indirect effects are greater in magnitude. We have known for a while that frequent classroom testing raises student achievement independent of any interpretation made of test scores (see, e.g., Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, & Kulik, 1991), and more recent work suggests that one of the key mechanisms by which testing improves outcomes is by improving retrieval (Little, Bjork, Bjork, & Angelo, 2012). One could go further and point out that some of the effects of testing do not even require a test—merely the possibility of one. If a teacher announces that a spelling test is to take place on the following Friday, provided there is some chance of the test actually taking place and serious consequences attaching to the outcome if it takes place, then the effect on learning is likely to be significant. Note that in this case, it is the speech act of announcing the test, rather than any information arising from the test, that improves the learning. I hasten to add that I do not have a better alternative to the labels “direct” and “indirect,” but the fact that these labels may not be immediately meaningful may be worth at least bearing in mind when using these ideas outside the measurement community. It is also worth pointing out that even where the tests are administered and scored, which would, therefore, presumably count as a direct mechanism, the interpretive argument may be irrelevant. Hanson (1993) offers a useful distinction between a literal and a representative test. To continue the example used by Haertel, the spelling teacher who tests students on the words on a