Testing for Learning

Argues that previous testing methods have adversely affected the way subjects have been taught, and describes new testing procedures designed to encourage students to develop reasoning and comprehension skills

Critics of multiple-choice tests have acquired some media attention recently, especially since a Virginia doctor, John J. Cannell, published a pamphlet on nationally normed elementary achievement testing and "how all 50 states are above the national average." Here Mitchell, associate director of the Council for Basic Education, accuses mechanically scored multiple-choice tests of trivializing teaching and learning. Instead of thinking and producing, she asserts, students learn to passively regurgitate capsules of information. The author wishes to give the authority for assessing student performance back to teachers. Despite a weak argument defending the cost of performance assessment against standardized tests, her ideas are well thought out and convincingly presented. For general education collections.
- Arla Lindgren, St. John's Univ., Jamaica, N.Y.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.