Validity and Racial Justice in Educational Assessment

Abstract

Given its centrality to assessment, until the concept of validity includes concern for racial justice, such matters will be seen as residing outside the “real” work of validation, rendering them powerless to count against the apparent scientific merit of the test. As the definition of validity has evolved, however, it holds great potential to centralize matters like racial (in)justice, positioning them as necessary validity evidence. This article reviews a history of debates over what validity should and shouldn’t encompass; we then look toward the more centralized stances on validity – the book series Standards and Educational Measurement – where we see that test use, and the social impact of test use, has been a mounting concern over the years within these publications. Finally, we explore Kane’s argument-based approach to validation, which I argue could impact racial justice concerns by centralizing them within the very notion of what makes assessment valid or invalid.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Stephen G. Sireci and Norbert Elliot for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. The editors of this issue – Emi Iwatani, Kyndra Middleton, and Jennifer Randall – also deserve a special thank you for making this type of work possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.