Untying the educational evaluator’s hands: a preliminary tele-assessment framework

Abstract

Despite knowledge of COVID-19’s expected impact on the 2020 and 2021 academic school years, policymakers, professional organizations, and test publishers have failed to offer consistent, well-defined or corresponding advice to educational evaluators on how to meet the unique challenges the pandemic has introduced. The directive vacuum that was produced led individuals and school districts to create their own policies and practices as a temporary stopgap. As a consequence, diagnosticians and evaluators across the country were left to interpret confusing legal requirements and competing professional recommendations concerning whether students could be evaluated remotely, whereby social distancing could be observed while continuing to address the ever-present academic needs of our youth. This essay calls for the development of clear testing standards for remote testing.

Keywords:

• COVID-19 preparedness
• educational evaluation
• psychoeducational assessment
• remote testing

Disclosure statement

No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Ronald L. Gardner is an independent researcher and has a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict Resolution. His research interests include student intervention, cross-cultural comparative analysis and conflict resolution.

Tammy L. Stephens is an educational diagnostician and former special education teacher. She has a Ph.D. in Special Education with an emphasis in Assessment. She is the author of numerous articles published in peer-reviewed journals focusing on topics including dyslexia and dysgraphia evaluations and the importance of considering exclusionary factors. Dr. Stephens is the author of Core-Selective Evaluation Process (C-SEP) and the creator of the Beyond the Score webinars.