University of Denver Book

This is the assigned text for a graduate level class called "Principles of Assessment." The class is a condensed summer class, being taught over a three week time period.

This book contains bare-bones information about assessment. With the supplemental handouts the instructor provides, it adequately provides basic information for most of the students taking the class - graduate students going into special education or school counseling. For the group of us taking this class as part of an alternate licensure program, the book is a little of base.

It starts off with a discussion of reliability and validity. Different test formats are discussed in a middle section. Specialized types of tests (aptitude, personality, intelligence, etc.) each get a chapter. The final two chapters are on test bias and legal issues surrounding testing.

I started to say that this book contained too much information on specialized (standardized) tests to be very valuable for the classroom teacher. It doesn't really; it just contains insufficient information on formative testing, testing modifications, performance assessment, portfolios, etc.

I'm reading another assessment text, Classroom Assessment What Teachers Need to Know, to get an alternate viewpoint. I'm not as far along in that book, but so far it seems to contain more information that is geared towards classroom teaching.

I suspect that the other text was selected for our class because it is shorter and easier to read. Plus, Popham includes some opinionated material which could be distracting to students.