The document discusses the cultural implications of assessment and how assessment can be used to maintain social control and power structures. It examines issues of bias in testing based on cultural references and discusses ways to create more culturally fair assessments. Examples of alternative and authentic assessments are provided to reduce bias and cultural influences on student evaluation.

1. Cultural Implications in Assessment Christy Marscheider May 22, 2009

2. Evolution of Assessment Gipps feels that societies use assessment to allow the mainstream population to retain power in a community.

4. Discussion Question Based on Gipps argument, do you feel that assessment is politically driven today? Consider this statement: Assessment is used “to control mass education and the nature of its goals and rewards…The provision of an apparently fair competition allows those who are not successful to accept their own failure (thus controlling resentment among the least privileged) and acquiesce in the legitimacy of the prevailing social order” Gipps 360

5. Mainstream Bias Specifically Content Bias Culture Free/Culture Fair Tests that are free from cultural references Tests that have questions with cultural references that all test takers are familiar with Is it possible to create a culture free/culture fair test? Discuss with working teachers in the class how they create culturally unbiased tests.

6. Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity Black students scored higher than white students. Proves evidence of effect of cultural bias and test results.

7. Consequential Validity in the Classroom

8. Consequetial Validity in theWorkplace Businesses seem to be even more aware of cultural biases in the U.S, perhaps due to our litigious society. Chesapeake Police Department Testing Lawsuit Discussion Question-Should the officers who did not receive adequate scores for promotion be allowed to retest? Should all candidates be required to retest?

9. Alternative Assessments Authentic Assessments Performance Assessments

10. Discussion Question Create a plan for authentic assessment for a class of ESL students who are in a math class with the objective: . The student will use actual measuring devices to compare metric and U.S. Customary units (cups, pints, quarts, gallons, and liters) for measuring liquid volume, using the concepts of more, less , and equivalent . SOL 2.17

11. Discussion Question Create an example of a performance assessment for the following objective: The student will explain how the contributions of ancient Greece and Rome have influenced the present world in terms of architecture, government (direct and representative democracy), and sports. SOL 3.1

12. Discussion Question Does “informal classroom based assessment give too much control over performance and success to the teacher”?