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Cognitive Testing of Educational Minorities: A Search for Alternatives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2016

Graham Davidson
Graham Davidson*
Affiliation:
Darwin Community College
*
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Darwin Community College, P.O. Box 40146, Casuarina. N.T. 5792
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Extract

This article is directed at both academic and practitioner psychologists. My reflections on the mythology that surrounds the application of intelligence tests and their educational equivalents in schools are directed at the former group, of which I am one. These beliefs persist partly because current developments in psychological theory generally have had very little impact on the practice of cognitive testing and even less impact on educational testing (Davidson, 1982a). When doubts are raised about testing of minority group children practitioners are often told simply that current testing procedures are inappropriate but are not told about alternative assessment procedures and the advantages and difficulties they impose.

A second aim therefore is to explore some of the alternatives. For that reason the title refers to “cognitive” assessment rather than to intellectual or educational assessment, the aim being to consider the contributions of cognitive science generally and cross-cultural cognitive psychology particularly to the development of alternative assessment procedures. It also refers deliberately to “educational” minorities rather than cultural minorities, because some of these principles apply equally to social minorities whose home circumstances and educational needs are different from those of the majority, and to groups that form cultural majorities but whose access to education is restricted by a politically dominant cultural minority.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Educational and Developmental Psychologist , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , November 1984 , pp. 39 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Psychological Society 1984

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