Language Institute 2007-08 LectureSeries: Assessing Language Learning
Standards-based Measures of Proficiency (STAMP) and the Ecology of Assessment
Carl Falsgraf
University of Oregon
12:00 pm, Thursday, October 18, 2007
254 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Driv
Abstract:
Assessment is too often seen as an isolated event rather than a system. The search for the “perfect test” – an absolutely reliable and valid instrument that tells us everything about a student’s abilities – is ultimately doomed to fail and distracts us from the more profitable search for a system employing multiple measures over time that paints a reasonbly accurate portrait. This paper will review traditional assessments and the metalanguage (e.g., summative vs. formative, proficiency vs. achievement) used to characterize them. It will then review recent advances in technology and testing that blur or redefine some of these categories. Finally, a paradigm of assessment employing the metaphor of an ecosystem will attempt to encompass these new means of assessing, relating them to each other and to the larger language learning enterprise in new and potentially fruitful ways will be proposed.
All lectures in the series are free and open to the public. Sponsored by the Language Institute, with funding from the College of Letters and Science Anonymous Fund.
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