ARC Laboratory Sharing

How cognitive science challenges the educational measurement tradition, by Robert J. Mislevy, University of Maryland

In this article, the author links cognitive science and educational measurement. What is interesting about the recent development in the field of cognitive science is its introduction of a “sociocognitive” perspective and its possible impacts on educational measurement. In traditional educational measurement perspective, latent traits are regarded as individual differences between persons on tasks of different types, quantitative in nature, modeled from observable variables such as item response to test items. A “sociocognitive” perspective, however, suggests that test performances are comprised of complex assemblies of component information-processing actions that are adapted to task requirements during performance. In other words, despite of the practicality of test scores for various purposes, such a view is that interpretations of test scores no longer suffice as scientific explanations of attitude and achievement constructs. In latter part, traditional measurement models in educational assessment are critiqued of that they are not real “measurement” models because most application of “measurement” models reason through a blend of the trait metaphor and the measurement metaphor, without having checked the aptness of the measurement portion. The author continues to advocate constructing measurement models through the sociocognitive perspective. Indeed the incorporation of the idea of cognitive psychology has already appeared methodological development in the recent educational assessment, namely, cognitive diagnostic modeling (CDM). Thought this article did not offer a more detailed description of how CDM helps advance the field of educational assessment, the psychometric literature published in recently years have already drawn our attention by the work on CDM. It is believed that developments in CDM in the future will help provide more useful information about students’ capabilities and form new arguments about assessment.