Reframing Research and Assessment Practices: Advancing an Antiracist and Anti-Ableist Research Agenda

Abstract

Educators and researchers strive to build policies and practices on data and evidence, especially on academic achievement scores. When assessment scores are inaccurate for specific student populations or when scores are inappropriately used, even data-driven decisions will be misinformed. To maximize the impact of the research-practice-policy collaborative, every stage of the assessment and research process needs to be critically interrogated. In this paper, we highlight the need to reframe assessment and research for multilingual learners, students with disabilities, and multilingual students with disabilities. We outline a framework that integrates three critical perspectives (QuantCrit, DisCrit, and critical multiculturalism) and discuss how this framework can be applied to assessment creation and research.