Strategy Diversity and Cognitive Assessment

Is the time ripe to develop technologically based versions of cognitive psychological methods and to apply them to problems of educational assessment? In this article, I point to dangers of using one common cognitive psychological method, chronometric analysis, for purposes of educational assessment. I also argue, though, that progress is being made toward developing more accurate diagnostic techniques, and that this progress promises to allow more revealing assessments than are possible with traditional psychometric instruments. Both the problems with chronometric methods and the promise of new approaches are illustrated with examples from recent research.

[1]  O. Svenson,et al.  Strategies for solving simple addition problems: A comparison of normal and subnormal children , 1975 .

[2]  Herbert P. Ginsburg,et al.  The development of mathematical thinking , 1983 .

[3]  Herbert P. Ginsburg,et al.  The Addition Methods of First- and Second-Grade Children. , 1981 .

[4]  L. B. Ames,et al.  Developmental trends in arithmetic. , 1951, The Journal of genetic psychology.

[5]  Dan Zakay,et al.  Time and human cognition : a life-span perspective , 1989 .

[6]  K. A. Ericsson,et al.  Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data , 1984 .

[7]  R S Siegler.  Individual differences in strategy choices: good students, not-so-good students, and perfectionists. , 1988, Child development.

[8]  Mark H. Ashcraft,et al.  Children’s Knowledge of Simple Arithmetic: A Developmental Model and Simulation , 1987 .

[9]  R. Siegler.  Hazards of mental chronometry: An example from children's subtraction. , 1989 .

[10]  G. Groen,et al.  A chronometric analysis of simple addition. , 1972 .

[11]  R. Siegler,et al.  Strategy choice procedures and the development of multiplication skill. , 1988, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[12]  Timothy A. Post,et al.  Emergence of Information-Retrieval Strategies in Numerical Cognition: A Developmental Study , 1986 .

[13]  J. Pellegrino,et al.  Processes, Products, and Measures of Memory Organization. , 1979 .

[14]  C. Brainerd.  Judgments and explanations as criteria for the presence of cognitive structures. , 1973 .

[15]  R. Siegler.  The perils of averaging data over strategies: An example from children's addition. , 1987 .

[16]  R. Sternberg.  Advances in the psychology of human intelligence , 1982 .

[17]  R. Sternberg.  Human Abilities: An Information Processing Approach , 1985 .

[18]  R. Sternberg.  Beyond IQ: A Triarchic Theory of Human Intelligence , 1984 .

[19]  J. B. Wyman,et al.  What is reading ability , 1921 .

[20]  Raymond S. Nickerson,et al.  New Directions in Educational Assessment , 1989 .

[21]  Robert S. Siegler,et al.  Chapter 5 Strategy Choices in Children's Time-Telling , 1989 .

[22]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. , 1977 .

[23]  C. Richard Puff,et al.  Memory Organization and Structure , 1979 .

[24]  R. Mayer.  Educational Psychology: A Cognitive Approach , 1987 .

[25]  Patricia Howlin,et al.  Origins of cognitive skills , 1986 .

[26]  Ola Svenson,et al.  Analysis of time required by children for simple additions. , 1975 .

[27]  Guy J. Groen,et al.  Can Preschool Children Invent Addition Algorithms , 1977 .

[28]  M. Just,et al.  The psychology of reading and language comprehension , 1986 .

[29]  Jeffrey Bisanz,et al.  Formal Methods in Developmental Psychology , 1987 .

[30]  Wolfgang Spohn,et al.  The Representation of , 1986 .

[31]  L. Resnick,et al.  Psychology of Mathematics for Instruction , 1981 .

[32]  Mark H. Ashcraft,et al.  The development of mental arithmetic: A chronometric approach☆ , 1982 .