ERIC Number: ED290761
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1987-Nov
Pages: 44
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Measuring Thinking Skills through Classroom Assessment.
Stiggins, Richard J.; And Others
Classroom assessment procedures of 36 teachers in grades 2 to 12 from the same suburban school district in the Pacific Northwest were studied to determine the extent to which they measure higher order thinking skills of students in mathematics, science, social studies, and language arts. Gathering information from teachers involved four steps: (1) teachers were interviewed about their plans for one instructional day; (2) teachers were each observed by a trained observer for all class periods of the day; (3) teachers provided observers with four to six samples of paper and pencil assessment instruments used recently; and (4) each was interviewed indepth after the day of observation. In both written and oral assessments, teachers focused nearly half of their assessments on the simple recall of facts and information. Inference and analysis received less attention, and comparison and evaluation were almost ignored. Despite teachers' understanding of the importance of teaching students to think, they still require students to reproduce facts and information. Only mathematics emphasized thinking beyond mere recall. Teachers at various grade levels were surprisingly similar in their assessment patterns. (SLD)
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: Northwest Regional Educational Lab., Portland, OR. Center for Performance Assessment.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A