Everything School Leaders Need to Know About Assessment / Edition 1

by W. James Popham

Overview

Educational assessment in a nutshell for busy school leaders!

A leading expert in educational assessment, W. James Popham discusses the key principles that educational leaders need to know about educational assessment to do their work effectively. Readers will come away with crucial understandings that allow them to lead assessment of learning, meet accountability requirements, and communicate with various stakeholders. Using plain language, a witty writing style, and practical examples, Popham covers:

• Validity, reliability, and assessment bias
• The importance of formative assessment
• Assessing students with disabilities and English language learners
• Interpreting results of large-scale assessments
• Instructional sensitivity of accountability tests
•

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412979795
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	04/15/2010
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

W. James Popham, professor emeritus at University of California Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, has spent the bulk of his educational career as a teacher. His first teaching assignment, for example, was in a small eastern Oregon high school where he taught English and social studies while serving as yearbook advisor, class sponsor, and unpaid tennis coach. That recompense meshed ideally with the quality of his coaching.

Most of Dr. Popham's teaching career took place at UCLA where, for nearly 30 years, he taught courses in instructional methods for prospective teachers as well as courses in evaluation and measurement for graduate students. At UCLA he won several distinguished teaching awards. In January 2000, he was recognized by UCLA Today as one of UCLA’s top 20 professors of the 20th century. (He notes that the 20th century was a full-length century, unlike the current abbreviated one.) In 1992, he took early retirement from UCLA upon learning that emeritus professors received free parking.

Because at UCLA he was acutely aware of the perishability of professors who failed to publish, he spent his non-teaching hours affixing words to paper. The result: 30 books, 200 journal articles, 50 research reports, and 175 papers presented before research societies. Although not noted in his official vita, while at UCLA he also authored 1,426 grocery lists.

His most recent books are Classroom Assessment: What Teachers Need to Know, 6th Ed. (2010) and Assessment for Educational Leaders (2006), Allyn & Bacon; The Truth About Testing (2001), Test Better, Teach Better (2003), Transformative Assessment (2008) and Instruction that Measures Up (2009) ASCD; America’s “Failing” Schools (2005) and Mastering Assessment (2006), Routledge; and Unlearned Lessons (2009) Harvard Education Press. He encourages purchase of these books because he regards their semi-annual royalties as psychologically reassuring.

In 1978, Dr. Popham was elected to the presidency of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). He was also the founding editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a quarterly journal published by AERA. A Fellow of the Association, he has attended each year's AERA meeting since his first in 1958. He is inordinately compulsive.

In 1968, Dr. Popham established IOX Assessment Associates, an R&D group that formerly created statewide student achievement tests for a dozen states. He has personally passed all of those tests, largely because of his unlimited access to the tests’ answer keys.

In 2002 the National Council on Measurement in Education presented him with its Award for Career Contributions to Educational Measurement. In 2006 he was awarded a Certificate of Recognition by the National Association of Test Directors. In 2009, he was appointed to be a board member of the National Assessment Governing Board. Dr. Popham’s complete 44-page, single-spaced vita can be requested. It is really dull reading.

School Leadership Briefing Interview

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xvii

About the Author xix

1 Why Do We Test? 1

The Role of Assessment 3

Coping With the Covert 5

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions 9

Unwarranted Perceptions of Precision 11

Crucial Understandings 14

Recommended Reading 16

2 Validity: Assessment's Cornerstone 17

The Validity of Inferences 17

Collecting Validity Evidence: Three Coins in the Fountain 19

Crucial Understandings 37

Recommended Reading 39

3 Test Reliability 41

Three Kinds of Consistency 42

Assessment Consistency for Individual Students 52

Reliability and Validity: Strange Bedfellows? 56

Crucial Understandings 57

Recommended Reading 58

4 Assessment Bias 59

What Is Assessment Bias? 59

Why Is Assessment Bias So Reprehensible? 64

Reducing Assessment Bias 67

Crucial Understandings 75

Recommended Reading 75

5 Instructional Sensitivity 77

Different Quests for Different Tests 78

Mistaken Evaluations of Schooling 81

What Is Instructional Sensitivity? 85

Determining an Accountability Test's Instructional Sensitivity 95

What's a School Leader to Do? 97

Crucial Understandings 99

Recommended Reading 100

6 Test Construction 101

Purpose as the Measurement Motivator 103

A Three-Component Game Plan 104

Item Development 107

Item Improvement 113

Test Assembly 115

Crucial Understandings 118

Recommended Reading 118

7 Rubrics: Potentially Potent Evaluative Tools 119

What Makes Up a Rubric? 121

Determining a Rubric's Quality 131

Crucial Understandings 135

Recommended Reading 136

8 Formative Assessment: Underused Magic Bullet 137

What Is Formative Assessment? 138

What Evidence Supports Formative Assessment? 140

How Does Formative Assessment Function? 143

Once Over, Very Lightly 151

Crucial Understandings 152

Recommended Reading 153

9 Assessing Students' Affect 155

Why Mess Around With Affect? 156

How to Assess Students' Affect 160

Building an Affective Inventory 166

Crucial Understandings 169

Recommended Reading 170

10 "Top 20" Crucial Understandings About Educational Assessment 171

Understanding the Understandings 172

Spreading the Word 174

The Top-20 List 176

A Final Word 180

Recommended Reading 180

Recommended Reading Roundup 181

Index 191

Editorial Reviews

The book is definitely needed and makes a distinct contribution to the field, especially for school leaders. The author asks thought-provoking questions and challenges the reader to follow through with staff.

Marie Blum

"Given the current climate of accountability in our nation, superintendents’ toolboxes should include a solid understanding of the many forms of assessment. This book offers a practical discussion and explanation of educational assessment concepts and procedures that affect a school or district’s outcomes. Of great help to the busy administrator is Popham’s set of crucial understandings in each chapter that detail the essential ideas. The chapter titled 'Top 20 Crucial Understandings about Educational Assessment' reviews all the critical content and serves as a refresher on topics of importance. "

The School Administrator

Finally we have a book written on educational assessment that is easy to understand and keeps the reader engaged and focused on the topic. The author provides practical and useful information for both school administrators and classroom teachers. This book demystifies educational assessment to help educators better meet the needs of students by understanding how assessment relates to good classroom instruction.

Kenneth Arndt

The writing style is great! Popham writes in such a way that one feels that he is speaking directly to you. The interspersing of humor—mostly in language and terms used—contributes very positively to the content, and the absence of educational jargon was so refreshing. The reader doesn’t feel overwhelmed.

Robert A. Frick