Educators' Perceptions of NRT Misuse

Abstract

What has been the impact of high stakes achievement testing on curriculum and testing practice? How serious is the problem of cheating on Standardized achievement tests? What steps can we take to improve the validity of test‐based information for a variety of educational purposes?

The Lack of Fidelity Between Cognitively Complex Constructs and Conventional Test Development Practice

“…Assessments that fail to faithfully represent these cognitively complex constructs may undermine the success of curriculum reforms such as those in mathematics (NCTM, 1989). As research has documented (Hall & Kleine, 1992;Herman & Golan, 1993;Smith & Rottenberg, 1991), the content of standardized tests influences what and how teachers teach. The NCTM may extol1 the need for and advantages of communicating perceptions and conclusions drawn from a mathematical context and connecting the mathematical nature of a situation with related mathematical knowledge, but teachers and administrators will heed what is covered on standardized tests.…”