Chapter 4 - Classroom Assessment as Inquiry

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the question as to what should the classroom teacher know and be able to do in assessing student achievement. This handbook chapter promises both context and depth on a topic. It begins with a brief review of assessment practices and policies over the past half-century, as they bear on the classroom teacher's role in judging student achievement. Next, it proposes several criteria for gauging the adequacy of classroom assessment practices at the local school site. Then it outlines a framework for the process of classroom assessment as inquiry or applied research. The final section attempts to reconcile an issue raised at the outset—the tension between the demands of external and internal mandates for assessing student achievement. Given the current upheaval in assessment generally and classroom assessment in particular, deciding what to include and what to exclude has been difficult. The chapter offers a conceptual and practical analysis of classroom assessment more than a listing of sources and citations. We have relied for background on several recent works. Finally, the