The Process of Designing Task Features

摘要

Almond, Kim, Velasquez, and Shute explore a key part of evidence-centered design (ECD)-6 different but nonexclusive roles that task model variables can have and their function within an overall assessment design. The authors provide examples of these roles for more-conventional tasks (math word problems) and for a game-based formative assessment, Newton's Playground. The article focuses on structure-the roles of these variables and the relation of these variables to the rest of the assessment design. This commentary addresses aspects of ECD that are complementary to the article, specifically aspects of process (How does one create a design involving task model variables? What is the dynamic relation between the student-model, evidence-model, and task-model variables as they are developed and revised?). While the structures described in Almond et al. provide the "what" of evidence-centered assessment design, the intent of this commentary is to discuss more about the design process itself-that is, the "how" that leads to these useful structures.