ERIC Number: ED166220
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1978-Jul
Pages: 15
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Relationships Between Testing and the Curriculum. Occasional Paper No. 9.
Porter, Andrew C.
The educational accountability movement is changing the teacher's role in curriculum development from that of autonomous decision maker to agent of public school policy makers. To assess teacher reactions to factors influencing their autonomy, 75 teachers were exposed to pressures to change the content of fourth grade mathematics instruction in a hypothetical school. Teachers were receptive to change whether the pressure came from parents, other teachers, the building principal, published instructional objectives, textbooks, or test results. Furthermore, teachers did not consider new topics as necessarily supplanting the old. Tests have an influence on curriculum because they can be viewed as concrete statements of the public's curriculum expectations. As such, tests should be contructed so that items are written for each of list of predefined objectives. Standardized achievement tests hold students accountable for only a fraction of objectives. The promise testing holds as a mechanism for affecting curriculum depends on communicating test content. A taxonomy has been constructed to identify content differences among standardized achievement tests. As a test selection tool, it should provide an index of the relationship between test and instructional content. A sample page from the taxonomy is appended. (CP)
Descriptors: Accountability, Achievement Tests, Content Analysis, Curriculum, Curriculum Development, Educational Objectives, Educational Testing, Intermediate Grades, Relevance (Education), Teacher Attitudes, Teacher Role, Test Selection, Test Validity
Institute for Research on Teaching, College of Education, Michigan State University, 252 Erickson Hall, East Lansing, Michigan 48824 ($1.00)
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Inst. of Education (DHEW), Washington, DC. Basic Skills Group. Teaching Div.
Authoring Institution: Michigan State Univ., East Lansing. Inst. for Research on Teaching.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A