Table Of ContentCultural Validity in Assessment
What is assessment and how is it a cultural practice? How does failure to account for lin-
guistic and cultural variation among students jeopardize assessment validity? What is
required to achieve cultural validity in assessment? This resource for practicing and pro-
spective teachers—as well as others concerned with fair and valid assessment—provides a
thorough grounding in relevant theory, research, and practice. The book lays out criteria
for culturally valid assessment and recommends specific strategies that teachers can use to
design and implement culturally valid classroom assessments.
Cultural Validity in Assessment: Addressing Linguistic and Cultural Diversity:
• Explores the role of culture and language in assessment, not only as it relates to
English language learners but to all students
• Gives teachers the necessary tools to develop a thorough understanding of cultural
validity in assessment as well as practical knowledge of ways to maximize cultural
validity in classroom assessment
• Examines every step in the assessment process, from assessment selection and design
to administration, scoring, and score interpretation, with a view to identifying ways
of maximizing fairness and validity for all students
• Offers examples from field-based work of the authors and others to illustrate con-
structive practices and policies that promise to yield more authentic accountability
than present practices provide
Assessment plays a powerful role in the process of education in the U.S. and has a dispro-
portionately negative impact on students who do not come from mainstream, middle-
class backgrounds. Given the significance of testing in education today, cultural validity in
assessment is an urgent issue facing educators. This book is essential reading for address-
ing this important, relevant topic.
María del Rosario Basterra is Independent Educational Consultant, Washington, DC,
specializing in issues related to English language learners, language minority students,
multicultural education, and preschool education.
Elise Trumbull is Independent Educational Consultant, Oakland, CA, specializing in
issues related to language and culture in schooling, and Lecturer, California State Univer-
sity, Northridge, Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling.
Guillermo Solano-Flores is Associate Professor, Bilingual Education and English as a
Second Language, University of Colorado at Boulder.
Language, Culture, and Teaching
Sonia Nieto, Series Editor
Basterra, Trumbull, & Solano-Flores, Eds. ∙ Cultural Validity in Assessment: Addressing
Linguistic and Cultural Diversity
Chapman & Hobbel, Eds. ∙ Social Justice Pedagogy across the Curriculum: The Practice of
Freedom
Andrews ∙ Re-Framing Literacy: Teaching and Learning in English and the Language Arts
Dantas & Manyak, Eds. ∙ Home–School Connections in a Multicultural Society: Learning
From and With Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families
Janks ∙ Literacy and Power
Nieto ∙ Language, Culture, and Teaching: Critical Perspectives for a New Century, Second
Edition
Botelho & Rudman ∙ Critical Multicultural Analysis of Children’s Literature: Mirrors,
Windows, and Doors
Spears-Bunton & Powell, Eds. ∙ Toward a Literacy of Promise: Joining the African-
American Struggle
Bruna & Gomez, Eds. ∙ The Work of Language in Multicultural Classrooms: Talking
Science, Writing Science
Morrell ∙ Critical Literacy and Urban Youth: Pedagogies of Access, Dissent, and Liberation
Edelsky ∙ With Literacy and Justice for All: Rethinking the Social in Language and
Education, Third Edition
Harmon & Wilson ∙ Beyond Grammar: Language, Power, and the Classroom
Berlin ∙ Contextualizing College ESL Classroom Praxis: A Participatory Approach to
Effective Instruction
Vasquez ∙ Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children
Goldstein ∙ Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural School: Choices, Risks, and
Dilemmas
Collins ∙ Community Writing: Researching Social Issues Through Composition
Visit www.routledge.com/education for additional information on titles in the
Language, Culture, and Teaching series.
Cultural Validity in
Assessment
Addressing Linguistic and
Cultural Diversity
Edited by
María del Rosario Basterra
Elise Trumbull
Guillermo Solano-Flores
First published 2011
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
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© 2011 Taylor & Francis
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Cultural validity in assessment : addressing linguistic and cultural
diversity / editors, María del Rosario Basterra, Elise Trumbull,
Guillermo Solano-Flores. – 1st ed.
p. cm. – (Language, culture, and teaching series)
1. Educational tests and measurements–United States–Evaluation.
2. Test bias–United States. 3. Minority students–United States–
Examinations. 4. Linguistic minorities–United States–
Examinations. 5. Multiculturalism–United States. I. Basterra, María
del Rosario. II. Trumbull, Elise. III. Solano Flores, Guillermo.
LB3051.C85 2011
371.26'013–dc22 2010025347
ISBN 0-203-85095-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13: 978-0-415-99979-3 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-99980-9 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-85095-4 (ebk)
Dedications
We dedicate this book to all the teachers who are seeking ways to promote
excellence and equity in their classrooms. The authors also want to give special
dedications to the following:
María del Rosario Basterra: To my husband Carlos and my daughter Lucía for
their unconditional support and love.
Elise Trumbull: To my ever-patient husband, Jerry Salzman, who will solve a
computer glitch for me any time, day or night.
Guillermo Solano-Flores: To María Araceli Ruiz-Primo (Ayis-Ayis), my wonder-
ful wife and great colleague.
Contents
Foreword ix
EUGENE E. GARCíA
Preface xii
Acknowledgments xvi
parT I
Cultural Validity in assessment—Basic Concepts 1
1 Assessing the Cultural Validity of Assessment Practices:
An Introduction 3
GUILLERMO SOLANO-FLORES
2 The Role of Language in Assessment 22
ELISE TRUMBULL AND GUILLERMO SOLANO-FLORES
parT II
assessing Students of Linguistically and Culturally
Diverse Backgrounds 47
3 Assessing English Language Learners: Critical Issues 49
JAMAL ABEDI
4 Cognition, Culture, Language, and Assessment: How to
Select Culturally Valid Assessments in the Classroom 72
MARíA DEL ROSARIO BASTERRA
viii Contents
5 Using Appropriate Assessment Processes: How to Get
Accurate Information about the Academic Knowledge and
Skills of English Language Learners 96
REBECCA KOPRIvA AND URSULA SExTON
6 Ensuring Valid Educational Assessments for ELL Students:
Scores, Score Interpretation, and Assessment Uses 115
RIChARD P. DURáN
7 Promoting Cultural Validity in the Assessment of Bilingual
Special Education Students 143
JOhN J. hOOvER AND JANETTE KLINGNER
8 Overview of Current Federal Policies in Assessment and
Accountability and their Impact on ELL Students 168
JULIA LARA AND MAGDA ChIA
parT III
Field Efforts to Increase Cultural Validity in
assessment 193
9 Language Arts: Designing and Using a Reading Assessment
for Learners Transitioning to English-Only Instruction 195
ELISE TRUMBULL AND NANETTE KOELSCh
10 Addressing the Language Demands of Mathematics
Assessments: Using a Language Framework and
Field Research Findings 218
ELISE TRUMBULL AND GUILLERMO SOLANO-FLORES
11 Science and Literacy Assessments with English Language
Learners 254
OKhEE LEE, ALExANDRA SANTAU, AND
JAIME MAERTEN-RIvERA
parT IV
Conclusion 275
12 Reflections on the Promise of Cultural Validity in Assessment 277
ELISE TRUMBULL, MARíA DEL ROSARIO BASTERRA, AND
GUILLERMO SOLANO-FLORES
List of Contributors 288
Index 294
Foreword
Eugene E. García
Cognitive and linguistic abilities and the performance of children are generally
assessed by measuring specific skills—typically through standardized testing.
Several concerns and problematic issues (including litigations) have come to
bear over the past few decades in relation to test development and assessment
practices for culturally and linguistically diverse students. Efforts continue to be
made to develop appropriate measures and procedures that take into account
children’s cultural and linguistic backgrounds so as to not penalize those who fall
outside the cultural mainstream in the U.S. The goal of these efforts, in general, is
to create culturally and linguistically relevant measures that accurately portray
the abilities and concurrent performance levels for a diverse body of children.
This volume brings together a set of colleagues who collectively help us
address the challenge of achieving this important goal, contributing at the theo-
retical, empirical, policy, and best-practice levels. Conceptually and theoretically,
issues related to the key roles of culture and language are addressed in a substan-
tive manner, laying the framework for understanding the complexity of assess-
ment with diverse populations. At the best-practice level, specific guidance with
regard to content-level assessment in reading, mathematics, and science are very
useful to a field in need of this proper guidance. The specific and general over-
view of policies in this field is both informative and most helpful in understand-
ing how future policy must be more responsive to diverse populations. By
attending to these important issues, the volume addresses in the most compre-
hensive aggregate that I am aware of the complex yet growing concern regarding
cultural validity of our assessments. In so doing, it adds a rich contribution to
this ever-growing field of inquiry.
Although important strides have been made in the development of appropri-
ate tests and assessment procedures for culturally and linguistically diverse stu-
dents, much research and development is still needed. Tests are still limited in
terms of their overall number as well as the domains and skills they cover. More-
over, several tests developed for specific language minority groups are merely
translations of original English versions, which tend to be based on Euro-
American cultural values. Their view of competence, in many cases, is simply not
applicable to other groups with different backgrounds. As such, the content and
construct validity of an English measure may not be the same when translated
into another language. Furthermore, tests with appropriate psychometric
