Enacting a Process for Developing Culturally Relevant Classroom Assessments

ABSTRACT A critical aspect of the development of culturally relevant classroom assessments is the design of tasks that affirm students’ racial and ethnic identities and community cultural practices. This paper describes the process we followed to build a shared understanding of what culturally relevant assessments are, to pursue ways of bringing more diverse voices and perspectives into the development process to generate new ideas and further our understanding, and finally to integrate those understandings and findings into the design of scenario-based tasks (ETS Testlets). This paper describes our engagement with research literature and employee-led affinity groups, students, and external consultants. In synthesizing their advice and feedback, we identified five design principles that scenario-based assessment developers can incorporate into their own work. These principles are then applied to the development of a scenario-based assessment task. Finally, we reflect on our process and challenges faced to inform future advancements in the field.