Evidence-Centered Assessment Design: Layers, Structures, and Terminology (Padi Technical Report 9)

Abstract

Educational assessment is at heart an exercise in evidentiary reasoning. From a handful of things that students say, do, or make, we want to draw inferences about what they know, can do, or have accomplishedmore broadly. Evidence-centered assessment design (ECD) is a framework that makes explicit the structures of assessment arguments, the elements and processes through which they are instantiated, and the interrelationships among them. This presentation provides an overview of ECD, highlighting the ideas of layers in the process, structures and representations within layers, and terms and concepts that can be used to guide the design of assessments of practically all types. Examples are drawn from the Principled Assessment Designs for Inquiry (PADI) project.