From the above conception of Playful Assessment, I view an assessment as a playful (i.e., doable) participation in a playful (i.e., play-full) activity, rather than treating an assessment as a positivistic evidence of individual knowledge. This proposed assessment model builds upon the Gibson’s Ecological Psychology and Situated Cognition. Here, to help better understand this assessment model, I list some of key aspects and design principles of Playful Assessment as follows:
1. Playfulness (doable, goal-oriented action): Assessment should create a play-full activity in the realistic context.
Drawing from Gibson’s Ecological Psychology, human, as a detector, perceive and act with the specific goal in the environment at all times. So our true …show more content…
Doing so results in changing one’s identity from the novice to more central participation in a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990). Through such active participation, knowledge is created, reflected, and evolved in the active form of competence, tool, or the language bound to the social context of a community of practice (Brown et al., 1989; Lave & Wenger 1991; Resnick, 1987; Whitehead, 1929). As such, assessment should identify and capture the individual’s social change in the given context—i.e., what kinds of language, process of problem-solving, or strategic thinking they use and find in assessment context. This could involve examinations of the frequency of participation of activity, quality of participation, social role defined within the social activities, i.e., whether examinees serve as an apprentice or a master in the course of social …show more content…
In terms of validity, situated cognition theorists concern more with the ecological validity of assessment, which is the extent that the assessment situation reflects the actual situations and functions that students participate and learn in the world (i.e., in the context). Roth (1998) critiqued that in most traditional assessment practice, there is a considerable difference between the assessment context and the actual learning situations, thereby failing to capture individuals-acting-in-situations. If learning is to be viewed as a competent-acting-in-the-context and we are to assess such situative cognition and action, then we should assess the performance in the context as closely as possible to the situations in which authentic activity and learning occur. In a nutshell, we should measure the performance by observing these practices in their natural contexts. In this respect, Roth (1998) argued that assessment must include social dimension/settings (having to do with the actual learning) to have the ecological validity. Young et al. (1997) also argued that assessment should include the interaction as unit of analysis to show a functional validity in the given context, being able to establish the ecological validity of the assessment. Therefore, Playful Assessment should take into account authenticity and fidelity of assessment, as opposed to the
1. Playfulness (doable, goal-oriented action): Assessment should create a play-full activity in the realistic context.
Drawing from Gibson’s Ecological Psychology, human, as a detector, perceive and act with the specific goal in the environment at all times. So our true …show more content…
Doing so results in changing one’s identity from the novice to more central participation in a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990). Through such active participation, knowledge is created, reflected, and evolved in the active form of competence, tool, or the language bound to the social context of a community of practice (Brown et al., 1989; Lave & Wenger 1991; Resnick, 1987; Whitehead, 1929). As such, assessment should identify and capture the individual’s social change in the given context—i.e., what kinds of language, process of problem-solving, or strategic thinking they use and find in assessment context. This could involve examinations of the frequency of participation of activity, quality of participation, social role defined within the social activities, i.e., whether examinees serve as an apprentice or a master in the course of social …show more content…
In terms of validity, situated cognition theorists concern more with the ecological validity of assessment, which is the extent that the assessment situation reflects the actual situations and functions that students participate and learn in the world (i.e., in the context). Roth (1998) critiqued that in most traditional assessment practice, there is a considerable difference between the assessment context and the actual learning situations, thereby failing to capture individuals-acting-in-situations. If learning is to be viewed as a competent-acting-in-the-context and we are to assess such situative cognition and action, then we should assess the performance in the context as closely as possible to the situations in which authentic activity and learning occur. In a nutshell, we should measure the performance by observing these practices in their natural contexts. In this respect, Roth (1998) argued that assessment must include social dimension/settings (having to do with the actual learning) to have the ecological validity. Young et al. (1997) also argued that assessment should include the interaction as unit of analysis to show a functional validity in the given context, being able to establish the ecological validity of the assessment. Therefore, Playful Assessment should take into account authenticity and fidelity of assessment, as opposed to the