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Cultural Validity in Assessment: Addressing Linguistic and Cultural Diversity PDF

317 Pages·2010·1.692 MB·Language, Culture, and Teaching Series
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Cultural Validity in Assessment What is assessment and how is it a cultural practice? How does failure to account for lin- guistic and cultural variation among students jeopardize assessment validity? What is required to achieve cultural validity in assessment? This resource for practicing and pro- spective teachers—as well as others concerned with fair and valid assessment—provides a thorough grounding in relevant theory, research, and practice. The book lays out criteria for culturally valid assessment and recommends specific strategies that teachers can use to design and implement culturally valid classroom assessments. Cultural Validity in Assessment: Addressing Linguistic and Cultural Diversity: • Explores the role of culture and language in assessment, not only as it relates to English language learners but to all students • Gives teachers the necessary tools to develop a thorough understanding of cultural validity in assessment as well as practical knowledge of ways to maximize cultural validity in classroom assessment • Examines every step in the assessment process, from assessment selection and design to administration, scoring, and score interpretation, with a view to identifying ways of maximizing fairness and validity for all students • Offers examples from field-based work of the authors and others to illustrate con- structive practices and policies that promise to yield more authentic accountability than present practices provide Assessment plays a powerful role in the process of education in the U.S. and has a dispro- portionately negative impact on students who do not come from mainstream, middle- class backgrounds. Given the significance of testing in education today, cultural validity in assessment is an urgent issue facing educators. This book is essential reading for address- ing this important, relevant topic. María del Rosario Basterra is Independent Educational Consultant, Washington, DC, specializing in issues related to English language learners, language minority students, multicultural education, and preschool education. Elise Trumbull is Independent Educational Consultant, Oakland, CA, specializing in issues related to language and culture in schooling, and Lecturer, California State Univer- sity, Northridge, Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling. Guillermo Solano-Flores is Associate Professor, Bilingual Education and English as a Second Language, University of Colorado at Boulder. Language, Culture, and Teaching Sonia Nieto, Series Editor Basterra, Trumbull, & Solano-Flores, Eds. ∙ Cultural Validity in Assessment: Addressing Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Chapman & Hobbel, Eds. ∙ Social Justice Pedagogy across the Curriculum: The Practice of Freedom Andrews ∙ Re-Framing Literacy: Teaching and Learning in English and the Language Arts Dantas & Manyak, Eds. ∙ Home–School Connections in a Multicultural Society: Learning From and With Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families Janks ∙ Literacy and Power Nieto ∙ Language, Culture, and Teaching: Critical Perspectives for a New Century, Second Edition Botelho & Rudman ∙ Critical Multicultural Analysis of Children’s Literature: Mirrors, Windows, and Doors Spears-Bunton & Powell, Eds. ∙ Toward a Literacy of Promise: Joining the African- American Struggle Bruna & Gomez, Eds. ∙ The Work of Language in Multicultural Classrooms: Talking Science, Writing Science Morrell ∙ Critical Literacy and Urban Youth: Pedagogies of Access, Dissent, and Liberation Edelsky ∙ With Literacy and Justice for All: Rethinking the Social in Language and Education, Third Edition Harmon & Wilson ∙ Beyond Grammar: Language, Power, and the Classroom Berlin ∙ Contextualizing College ESL Classroom Praxis: A Participatory Approach to Effective Instruction Vasquez ∙ Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children Goldstein ∙ Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural School: Choices, Risks, and Dilemmas Collins ∙ Community Writing: Researching Social Issues Through Composition Visit www.routledge.com/education for additional information on titles in the Language, Culture, and Teaching series. Cultural Validity in Assessment Addressing Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Edited by María del Rosario Basterra Elise Trumbull Guillermo Solano-Flores First published 2011 by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2011 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Cultural validity in assessment : addressing linguistic and cultural diversity / editors, María del Rosario Basterra, Elise Trumbull, Guillermo Solano-Flores. – 1st ed. p. cm. – (Language, culture, and teaching series) 1. Educational tests and measurements–United States–Evaluation. 2. Test bias–United States. 3. Minority students–United States– Examinations. 4. Linguistic minorities–United States– Examinations. 5. Multiculturalism–United States. I. Basterra, María del Rosario. II. Trumbull, Elise. III. Solano Flores, Guillermo. LB3051.C85 2011 371.26'013–dc22 2010025347 ISBN 0-203-85095-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN13: 978-0-415-99979-3 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-99980-9 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-85095-4 (ebk) Dedications We dedicate this book to all the teachers who are seeking ways to promote excellence and equity in their classrooms. The authors also want to give special dedications to the following: María del Rosario Basterra: To my husband Carlos and my daughter Lucía for their unconditional support and love. Elise Trumbull: To my ever-patient husband, Jerry Salzman, who will solve a computer glitch for me any time, day or night. Guillermo Solano-Flores: To María Araceli Ruiz-Primo (Ayis-Ayis), my wonder- ful wife and great colleague. Contents Foreword ix EUGENE E. GARCíA Preface xii Acknowledgments xvi parT I Cultural Validity in assessment—Basic Concepts 1 1 Assessing the Cultural Validity of Assessment Practices: An Introduction 3 GUILLERMO SOLANO-FLORES 2 The Role of Language in Assessment 22 ELISE TRUMBULL AND GUILLERMO SOLANO-FLORES parT II assessing Students of Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Backgrounds 47 3 Assessing English Language Learners: Critical Issues 49 JAMAL ABEDI 4 Cognition, Culture, Language, and Assessment: How to Select Culturally Valid Assessments in the Classroom 72 MARíA DEL ROSARIO BASTERRA viii Contents 5 Using Appropriate Assessment Processes: How to Get Accurate Information about the Academic Knowledge and Skills of English Language Learners 96 REBECCA KOPRIvA AND URSULA SExTON 6 Ensuring Valid Educational Assessments for ELL Students: Scores, Score Interpretation, and Assessment Uses 115 RIChARD P. DURáN 7 Promoting Cultural Validity in the Assessment of Bilingual Special Education Students 143 JOhN J. hOOvER AND JANETTE KLINGNER 8 Overview of Current Federal Policies in Assessment and Accountability and their Impact on ELL Students 168 JULIA LARA AND MAGDA ChIA parT III Field Efforts to Increase Cultural Validity in assessment 193 9 Language Arts: Designing and Using a Reading Assessment for Learners Transitioning to English-Only Instruction 195 ELISE TRUMBULL AND NANETTE KOELSCh 10 Addressing the Language Demands of Mathematics Assessments: Using a Language Framework and Field Research Findings 218 ELISE TRUMBULL AND GUILLERMO SOLANO-FLORES 11 Science and Literacy Assessments with English Language Learners 254 OKhEE LEE, ALExANDRA SANTAU, AND JAIME MAERTEN-RIvERA parT IV Conclusion 275 12 Reflections on the Promise of Cultural Validity in Assessment 277 ELISE TRUMBULL, MARíA DEL ROSARIO BASTERRA, AND GUILLERMO SOLANO-FLORES List of Contributors 288 Index 294 Foreword Eugene E. García Cognitive and linguistic abilities and the performance of children are generally assessed by measuring specific skills—typically through standardized testing. Several concerns and problematic issues (including litigations) have come to bear over the past few decades in relation to test development and assessment practices for culturally and linguistically diverse students. Efforts continue to be made to develop appropriate measures and procedures that take into account children’s cultural and linguistic backgrounds so as to not penalize those who fall outside the cultural mainstream in the U.S. The goal of these efforts, in general, is to create culturally and linguistically relevant measures that accurately portray the abilities and concurrent performance levels for a diverse body of children. This volume brings together a set of colleagues who collectively help us address the challenge of achieving this important goal, contributing at the theo- retical, empirical, policy, and best-practice levels. Conceptually and theoretically, issues related to the key roles of culture and language are addressed in a substan- tive manner, laying the framework for understanding the complexity of assess- ment with diverse populations. At the best-practice level, specific guidance with regard to content-level assessment in reading, mathematics, and science are very useful to a field in need of this proper guidance. The specific and general over- view of policies in this field is both informative and most helpful in understand- ing how future policy must be more responsive to diverse populations. By attending to these important issues, the volume addresses in the most compre- hensive aggregate that I am aware of the complex yet growing concern regarding cultural validity of our assessments. In so doing, it adds a rich contribution to this ever-growing field of inquiry. Although important strides have been made in the development of appropri- ate tests and assessment procedures for culturally and linguistically diverse stu- dents, much research and development is still needed. Tests are still limited in terms of their overall number as well as the domains and skills they cover. More- over, several tests developed for specific language minority groups are merely translations of original English versions, which tend to be based on Euro- American cultural values. Their view of competence, in many cases, is simply not applicable to other groups with different backgrounds. As such, the content and construct validity of an English measure may not be the same when translated into another language. Furthermore, tests with appropriate psychometric

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