In this article we rethink validation within the complex contexts of high-stakes assessment. We begin by considering the utility of existing models for validation and argue that these models tend to overlook some of the complexities inherent to assessment use, including the multiple interpretations of assessment purposes and the potential interaction of assessment uses. We respond to these limitations by proposing an interpretive approach to validation that we call validation as narrative case description. This approach uses a case-based framework and hermeneutic methodology to construct and analyse validity evidence and suggests narrative as a representational format for communicating validation claims. We illustrate this approach by considering a case study of a secondary mathematics assessment administered in Ontario, Canada. In introducing this approach, we are contributing to the ongoing dialogue on reconceptualising validation as an interpretive process that serves a generative function.
Implications of the multiple‐use of accountability assessments for the process of validation are examined. Multiple‐use refers to the simultaneous use of results from a single administration of an assessment for its intended use and for one or more additional uses. A theoretical discussion of the issues for validation which emerge from multiple‐use is provided focusing on the increased stakes that result from multiple‐use and the need to consider the interactions that may take place between multiple‐uses. To further explore this practice, an empirical study of the multiple‐use of the Education Quality and Accountability Office Grade 9 Assessment of Mathematics, a mandatory assessment administered in Ontario, Canada, is presented. Drawing on data gathered in an in‐depth case study, practices associated with two of the multiple‐uses of this assessment are considered and evidence of ways these two uses interact is presented. Given these interactions, the limitations of an argument‐based approach to validation for this instance of multiple‐use are demonstrated. Some ways that the process of validation might better address the practice of multiple‐use are suggested and areas for further investigation of this frequently occurring practice are discussed.
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