Issues in Technology Column
Editor: Ernest Balajthy, State University of New York
at Geneseo
Information Technology and Literacy Assessment
Ernest Balajthy
State University of New York at Geneseo
Running Head: Literacy Assessment
Information Technology and Literacy Assessment
Ernest Balajthy
State University of New York at Geneseo
Some years back I carried out a comprehensive survey of computer applications in reading assessment (Balajthy, 1989). As I prepared this column (as well as others on the topic to follow in future issues of Reading and Writing Quarterly), it was fun to go back and look at that book and other major texts on computers and reading from the early days of classroom microcomputers (Balajthy, 1986; Reinking, 1987; Strickland, Feeley, & Wepner, 1987). Times certainly have changed since the days when the dominant classroom platform was the Apple II, when floppy disks were used for software storage instead of CD-ROMs and hard drives, and when multimedia and the Internet were so futuristic as to receive only cursory mention in educational writings.
Frankly, I hoped to lift some material from my old writings to help out with these upcoming columns, but not much was usable except for the sections on general principles of reading assessment and instruction. Even those sections needed a serious updating to reflect the impact of the Whole Language Movement (come and gone since the late 1980’s), the ascendancy within our field of authentic, constructivist approaches to assessment, and the present status of (interestingly, mostly inauthentic, non-constructivist) state and national “high stakes” assessment programs (See Tierney, Moore, Valencia, and Johnston, 2000, for a contemporary constructivist position statement on the future of assessment).
Perhaps most interesting of all, in my examination of the state of the field more than ten years ago, were the directions which computer-based assessment and instruction had not taken. Two whole chapters in my text had been devoted to the potential of expert systems for reading diagnosis. Expert systems are rule-based software systems for consultation. They are designed to imitate the reasoning of a human expert in a given content topic, such as reading assessment. I suggested that, considering the explosion of research in the field of reading and education in general, an expert system which was designed to be consulted by a classroom teacher would prove invaluable:
Because of the enormous complexity of the educational process, teachers often must make decisions in areas about which they have received little or no training. Is a student suffering from an emotional problem? Does a student have a specific learning deficit? Are there reading skills that the student lacks? Does a special student need certain kinds of help?…A teacher could use an expert system to deal with each of these issues. The system could be designed to obtain information from the teacher, structure the teacher’s thinking about the problem, and provide specific ideas for solution of any problems diagnosed. (Balajthy, 1989, pp. 176-177)
Another chapter dealt with the issue of Intelligent Computer-Assisted Instruction (ICAI) and two more with the potential of natural language processing for reading instructional software. ICAI uses a domain knowledge system to mimic the flexible decision-making ability of a human teacher during instruction. Natural language software allows teachers and students to communicate with the computer using ordinary words and sentences. Neither technology has yet come to play an important role in instructional delivery.
Present realities, of course, can be described a lot more accurately than future trends. Figure 1 presents a model of the major present-day applications of information technologies in reading and literacy assessment. The components in bold typeface were available to educators at the time of the Balajthy (1989) survey. Components in standard typeface represent new applications since that time, and italicized components may (or may not) come in the future.
Computer-Scored Testing: Use of computers to correct test answer sheets and report on results has long been in existence. Testing services continue to provide off-site scoring, but schools now often have the option of using their own hardware to run software provided by the test publishers so that scoring can be done on-site.
Computer-Administered Formal Assessment: Test publishers now offer a variety of tests on CD-ROM which are administered and scored at a computer station.
Internet-Based Formal Assessment: This is a subset of Computer-Administered Formal Assessment, described above. These tests are administered to students while they are at an Internet website. Results are also scored and reported via the Internet.
Computerized Adaptive Tests: This is another subset of Computer-Administered Formal Assessment, described above. In adaptive testing, the computer administers only items that it chooses to suit the individual student being tested. A test typically starts with a question of average difficulty. If it is answered correctly, more difficult questions are administered. If the initial question is answered incorrectly, the computer chooses easier questions. This continuing process of differentiated difficulty greatly decreases the amount of time spent on the test and can also increase its accuracy.
Placement Tests: These tests, which are part of a published reading/literacy curriculum, determine the achievement level of a student in order to place the child at an appropriate level within the curriculum.
Informal Assessment: These are tests and inventories that are made by teachers or publishers that have not been normed. A wide variety of such devices are available on the Internet.
Electronic Portfolios: This software is designed to display student writings, photographs of other student work, and records of a variety of formal and informal assessments. They are basically student work folders on a disk.
Information Management: A variety of computer-based tools are available to store and retrieve assessment information.
Internet Information Dissemination: Many states are now making use of the Internet to disseminate achievement test results. Such results typically involve school-wide or district-wide results, rather than the results for an individual student or a single classroom. State sites also provide information on the purpose and format of such tests, as well as test preparation materials.
Future columns will be directed specifically at each of these ways in which information technologies are being used for reading and literacy assessment. Discussions will include evaluations of specific devices, as well as more general issues pertaining to their use. A good place to start any examination of this topic is with a study of sound principles of assessment. The International Reading Association offers two important sources of such principles:
International Reading Association and National Council of Teachers of English Joint Task Force on Assessment. (1994). Standards for the assessment of reading and writing. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
International Reading Association. (2000). Position statement on high-stakes testing. Newark, DE. Available online at www.reading.org/positions.
References
Balajthy, E. (1986). Microcomputers in reading and language arts. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Balajthy, E. (1989). Computers and reading: Lessons from the past and the technologies of the future. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Reinking, D. (Ed.). (1987). Reading and computers: Issues for theory and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
Strickland, D. S., Feeley, J. T., & Wepner, S. B. (1987). Using computers in the teaching of reading. New York: Teachers College Press.
Tierney, R. J., Moore, D. W., Valencia, S. W., & Johnston, P. (2000). How will literacy be assessed in the next millennium? Reading Research Quarterly, 35, 244-250.
Ernest Balajthy, the author and column editor, (e-mail: Balajthy@geneseo.edu; website: http://www.geneseo.edu/~balajthy) is at the School of Education, State University of New York at Geneseo, Geneseo, NY 14454.