A qualitative study of legislated assessment policy in Tennessee

The general purpose of this study was to understand the impact of legislated assessment practices on student academic performance in Tennessee. Specifically, the study was to examine the Education Improvement Act (EIA) of 1992 to determine the strengths and weaknesses of its design in terms of related theory, "best" educational practices, and its potential to advance policy objectives. As a result of the study, recommendations were made to improve educational policymaking as it affects educational practice.

The conditions of this study met the primary requirements for using a case study research design. Documents and records were analyzed that preserve the historical context and decision-making processes of educational policymakers in Tennessee. Specifically, the documents and records related to the use of assessment as part of the EIA's design were reviewed. In an effort to stay as close as possible to the historical context of the enactment of the EIA, documents and records were collected from each major policy agency and then analyzed using a process coding within an open coding technique. To corroborate the evidence presented in the analysis of the data, the researcher used a data triangulation strategy, comparing concepts and categories defined in data from the legislative meetings across multiple-agency settings.

Major findings were that: (1) accountability emerged as the major theme of the EIA, (2) judicial intervention created a shift in the importance and type of influences on past legislative decision-making patterns, (3) the basic assumptions of educational policymakers support a mechanistic understanding of schooling systems, (4) the intended outcomes of the EIA were to improve education in the state and decrease political risk, (5) the unintended outcome was to constrain educational practice to a more traditional rather than innovative practice, (6) the current assessment program strengthened the negative feedback loop in the schooling system, and (7) the EIA did not explicitly provide for a positive feedback loop.

Conclusions and recommendations of the study focused on the need for educational policy that provides for building the capacity of teachers by restoring the evaluation of student performance to the classroom level. This would require an assessment program that is formative, contextual, and highly related to the learning targeted for improvement. This would also require a commitment to professional development in the area of assessment through a dedicated percentage of the education budget.