Enlarging the Dialogue in Educational Measurement: Voices from Interpretive Research Traditions

Abstract

In this article, I argue that the theory and practice of educational measurement would benefit by expanding the dialogue among measurement professionals to include voices from research traditions different from ours and from the communities we study and serve. To that end, I explore a critical dialectic between a naturalist conception of social science, from which the tradition of educational measurement has evolved, and an interpretive conception of social science. By moving between theory and concrete illustrations, I contrast the ways in which interpretations are typically constructed and grounded within the different traditions and consider the ethical and political consequences of these epistemological choices. This contrast among research traditions reflects an exercise in what Messick (1989) calls a “Singerian” mode of inquiry, where one method of inquiry is evaluated in terms of another to highlight the assumptions and values underlying each. The dialectic implied in such a reciprocal critique—particularly when undertaken with the respectful intent of comprehending the alternative perspective as fully as possible (Bernstein, 1992)—provides a generative model through which assessment theory and practice can evolve.