As a child of the early 2000s, I went through school at a curious time for assessment. Following what Shepard (2000) described in Figure 1 as the 20th century dominant paradigm, many of my teachers ascribed to a behavioristic form of assessment (p. 5). In elementary school, I remember spelling tests, timed mathematics tests, and plenty of pink and white scantron sheets I never wanted to fully bubble in. As I went through middle and high school, many of my teachers – especially the younger ones – approached assessment through a more social constructivist lens, which Shepard (2000) called the emergent paradigm in education. I remember presentations I made in history about the Harlem Renaissance, an oral response to a theme in To Kill a Mockingbird for my English teacher in 9th grade, and the catapult I built out of an easel and some elastic for physics. However, my teachers still had to prepare me for the numerous standardized tests I had to take my junior year. 

These tests would largely determine my opportunity post high school. From the Workkeys to the ASVAB and ACT, these tests were made out to be as important as my grades. I remember the anxiety surrounding one test in particular, the ACT. At the time, colleges and universities would use ACT scores to determine acceptance, financial aid, admission to honors programs and more. I knew I needed scholarships to go to university. I also knew that many of these scholarships would be dependent on my score. I was so nervous over this fact that my parents allowed me to sign up to take the test a year early as a means to self-assess my progress and then better prepare for my junior year. 

I am fortunate my parents knew the importance of this test and had the means to purchase a preparation guide for me and the time to help me through it. A process made easier as I was and still am largely self-motivated when it comes to learning. When my junior year came and I had to take the test for real, my teachers spent months preparing us how to take the test and cramming in content that would be on it – nevermind the disconnect between ACT content and what I needed to learn as part of the school curriculum. This echoes what Shepard (2000) called the “dissonant current” practices of modern educational practice and assessment, where curriculum and assessment are often separate (p. 4). 

When scores were announced, our class rankings had shifted based on our standardized test scores. Friends became enemies overnight and senior year was fraught with test retakes to try and improve scores for scholarship opportunities and class standing. I had done fairly well, yet I still signed up to take the test one more time to try and get just one point higher to boost my chances of getting scholarships. 

This assessment, born from behaviorist and the curriculum of social efficiency (Shepard, 2000), administered to me by a teacher who gave us applied projects for assessments, determined what colleges I applied to and how I ranked in my class. Though only a test, assessment was closely tied to my self-worth as a high school student and played a role in determining my future more than any other single 4-hour period of time in my adolescent life. Assessment is part of what Selwyn (2011) called “the social ‘milieu’ of education” (p. 5). It is partly a demonstration of learning or knowledge: filling out an answer on a test, stopping before the white line at a stop sign during driver’s training, and giving the teacher a thumbs up when asked if you understand the concept. In juxtaposition to this, assessment is also the hours-long standardized tests that purport to catalogue what students learn in school and sort them based on percentages of correctly answered questions. I believe assessment is human-constructed. It carries social, cultural, political, and even economic contexts with its creation, dissemination, and scoring. My high school led me to believe an assessment could determine the entirety of my future; I strive to ensure my students do not hold the same fear.

References 

Selwyn, N. (2011). Education and technology: Key issues and debates. Continuum International Publishing.

Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4-14.