10-second review: Need to learn what culturally different students understand when they respond to assessment items in reading.
Title: “Culture and Consequences: The Canaries in the Coal Mine.” S Murphy. Research in the Teaching of English (November 2007), 228-44.
Quote: “These examples show that there are many ways that the congruence between intended message and understood message can be disrupted. Because children’s responses to test items are most often neatly categorized as ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ and because seemingly precise and ‘objective’ numbers are calculated from them, we may be lulled into a false sense of certainty about what those responses mean. Meaning is always culturally and contextually, dependent, and it can only be investigated by asking questions of those who are taking it.”
Comment: Even mainstream American students, those who are not culturally different, can help us understand how our use of the English language does not match the understanding of test-takers. We need to ask. RayS.
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