Assessment validity is crucial in educational settings, especially for speech-language pathologists working with children. Validity ensures that the assessments accurately measure what they intend to, leading to better-informed decisions about a child's educational needs. However, many validity arguments in health professions education (HPE) lack a structured framework, often presenting clusters of evidence without a guiding principle to evaluate their merits.
Argumentation theory, dedicated to understanding the production, analysis, and evaluation of arguments, can offer a structured approach to assessment validity. Kinnear et al. (2022) highlight two argumentation orientations particularly useful for informing HPE assessment validity: New Rhetoric and Informal Logic.
New Rhetoric
New Rhetoric focuses on persuasion, emphasizing the values and standards of the audience. This orientation aligns with the social imperative in HPE to be accountable to specific stakeholders, such as the public and learners. Practitioners can use New Rhetoric to ensure their assessments resonate with the values and expectations of these stakeholders. By doing so, they can create more persuasive and accepted validity arguments.
Informal Logic
Informal Logic centers on identifying, structuring, and evaluating arguments in real-world settings. It uses various normative standards to assess argument validity. For practitioners, this means employing tools to structure their validity arguments clearly and logically. Informal Logic provides a practical framework for analyzing and evaluating the evidence supporting an assessment's validity.
Implementing Argumentation Theory in Practice
To implement these insights, practitioners can follow these steps:
- Understand Your Audience: Identify the key stakeholders (e.g., parents, teachers, administrators) and understand their values and expectations regarding assessment outcomes.
- Structure Your Arguments: Use the principles of Informal Logic to organize your evidence and arguments coherently. Ensure that each piece of evidence supports your overall validity claim.
- Evaluate and Refine: Continuously evaluate the strength of your arguments and seek feedback from stakeholders. Use this feedback to refine your validity arguments, making them more persuasive and robust.
By incorporating New Rhetoric and Informal Logic into their assessment practices, speech-language pathologists can create more compelling and valid assessments. This approach not only improves the quality of assessments but also enhances the trust and acceptance of assessment results among stakeholders.
For practitioners interested in further exploring this topic, conducting additional research on argumentation theory and its applications in educational assessments can be highly beneficial. Engaging with the broader literature can provide deeper insights and more practical tools for enhancing assessment validity.
To read the original research paper, please follow this link: How argumentation theory can inform assessment validity: A critical review.
