Customer Reviews

Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment

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This book is not terrible and provides a good overview and introduction to assessment. The previous reviewer of this book could not have been more wrong about grades. Actually, research shows grades are a horrible predictor of success when controlling for other factors (income, socio-economic status, etc.). Research also shows there is *no* link between a grade and what someone has learned. This is because grades are relative and measure an individual's performance at one time, although I will admit that using multiple methods and more numerous testing will increase the validity of grades. If tied to the learning goals of a course, grades can be effective. But as a policy making tool or measure of what someone has learned, grades really don't say much, if anything at all.

Pellegrino, Chudwosky, and Glaser's book was the ubiquitous entry in each reference section of numerous articles I have read on educational assessment. By its very nature and scope, this report commissioned by the National Research Council and sponsored by the National Science Foundation undergirds any study in educational assessment.

Without much fluff, a committee of well-qualified and experienced professionals set out to answer the simple but far from simplistic question that every educator asks of students, "How do I know they know?" Utilizing advances in contemporary theories of learning, cognition, and measurement, the authors lay a firm foundation for the study and the advancement of educational assessment. The language of the text is academic, illustrative material is succinct, references are exhaustive, and format is easily readable. "Implications for Assessment" are appropriately located in each section within the eight chapters of the book.

I highly recommend this book for educational administrators, assessment designers, teachers, teacher educators, educational advocates, and educational assessment researchers. The report's authoritative comprehensiveness is the result of a concerted effort by a select group of scholars, driven by a singular intent, to produce a substantial foundation for the improvement of teaching, learning, and assessing.

Unlike the book, this review will be pithy. Purely out of academic necessity I am required to read and utilize "Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment," for a class in the masters program in which I am enrolled in the area of Educational Management. The authors go to painstaking measures to demonstrate their knowledge of a subject that could be explained in half the amount of words and explanations. The book makes the subject matter more complicated than is necessary. It turns a dry subject into a veritable Sahara-like atmosphere.