Rethinking Psychometricians’ Beliefs About Learning

Abstract

A recent article by Shepard (1991) described psychometricians’ beliefs about learning. Shepard’ s work provided many defensible recommendations for improving testing practice. However, Shepard’ s model of the ways in which curriculum, teaching, and testing interact is misspecified and promotes several false conceptions about the relationship between psychometrics and testing practice. The errors have the potential to do great harm if educational reform efforts are unintentionally misdirected. In the following article, some of the mistakes in analysis and conclusions are explicated. I evaluate the positive contribution of Shepard’s work to educational practice, examine errors introduced in Shepard’s model, and suggest an alternative model that may provide a more fruitful research agenda.