Research on Children's Understanding of the Natural World to Improve Assessment

摘要

Smith, Wiser, Anderson, and Krajcik (this issue) propose to apply research on children's learning to eliminate weaknesses they have identified in national standards and assessments. That research on children's perspectives on matter and its properties has important implications for the interpretation of standards and the design of assessments is uncontested. However, the strategy for application described in the article conflates curriculum and assessment in a way that weakens the potential contributions of the research to strengthening standards-based assessment. My commentary responds to criticisms of standards and suggests more focused ways in which the research might be applied to improve assessment.