Assessment for Learning.

T ests have long been used to classify people and to evaluate educational programs. The ben efits of testing for these purposes, though, have accrued mainly to insti tutions and have generally not served learners directly. Therefore, critics have rightly questioned the pedagogi cal relevance of educational assess ment in its present form (McLean 1986, Frederiksen 1984). Recently, though, an exciting new vision of testing is emerging, in part from a sense of what is now techno logically feasible. For example, ad vances in cognitive science have made it possible to understand in some de tail how learning takes place in subject matter areas, such as science and mathematics. Likewise, the develop ment of item-response theory in psychometrics has enabled us to describe growth in expertise more precisely than ever before. And, of course, great strides in computer and related tech nologies have been made during the past decade. In short, converging forces portend a new generation of tests—tests that better serve the inter ests of teachers and students in pro moting learning. Here we describe the essential ele ments of a new generation of tests,