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Routine Testing Practices and the Linguistic Construction of Knowledge

Author(s): Deborah Poole

Source: Cognition and Instruction, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1994), pp. 125-150

Published by: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (Taylor & Francis Group)

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3233678

Accessed: 31/08/2008 21:31

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2/27

COGNITION

ND

NSTRUCTION,994,

2(2),

125-150

Copyright

1994,

Lawrence

rlbaum

ssociates,

nc.

Routine

Testing

Practicesand the

Linguistic

Construction

f

Knowledge

Deborah Poole

San

Diego

State

University

This article

xamines he

linguistic ncoding

of curricular

nowledge

n

routine

classroom

esting

vents.

Focusing

n

transcript

ata ollected

n

a

qualitativetudy

of

junior

high

school

social studies

lassrooms,

argue

hat he

dominant

piste-

mological

rientation

f

testing

vents s

positivistic

ndvaluesa

discrete,

ounded

formof

knowledge.

he

analysis

enters

n

the

language

f

reviewactivities hat

typically

recede

nd

ollow

classroom

ests;

pecifically,

t

focuseson interactional

sequences

hat demandstudents'verbal

participation

n a

culturally

pecified

orientation

o

knowledge.

A

comparison

f the

language

f

these

testing

events

andearlieressonpresentationsf the same curricularnformationuggests hat

testing

encourages

nd

exaggerates

he extent to which a

positivistic

view

of

knowledge

revails.

High-status

knowledge appears

to

be discrete

knowledge.

It has .

. .

identifiable

content

and . . .

stable structure

that

are

both

teachable

and,

what

is

critically

important,

estable.

Apple,

1990)

In

addressing

the interface between

ideology

and school

curriculum,

a number

of scholars have noted that the

knowledge

that

typically

counts in the school

setting

can

be characterized s

positivistic (Apple,

1990;

Giroux,

1981),

technical

(Apple,

1990; McClaren,

1989),

componential

or bounded

Freire,

1970; Giroux,

1981;

McClaren,1989; Woods, 1979;

cf. P.

Berger,

B.

Berger,

&

Kellner, 1973;

R. Scollon &

S.

Scollon,

1981).

In

these

interpretations,

chool-valued

knowledge

is that

which can be

objectified

into

discrete

and

measurableunits

of

information

seemingly

free

of affective or

value-laden dimensions.

Giroux

(1981),

for

example, argued

that curricular

knowledge

as

typically

constituted

in

U.S.

education

reflects

a

"culture

of

positivism":

Requests

for

reprints

should be

sent

to

Deborah

Poole,

Department

of

Linguistics

& Oriental

Languages,

San

Diego

State

University,

San

Diego,

CA

92182.


3/27

126 POOLE

The central

ssumptiony

which he

culture

f

positivism

ationalizes

ts

position

on

theory

nd

knowledge

s the

notionof

objectivity,

he

separation

f

values rom

knowledge

nd

methodologicalnquiry

like.

(p. 44)

The

way

classroomeachers

iew

knowledge,

he

way

knowledge

s

mediated

through

pecific

lassroom

methodologies,

nd he

way

students

re

taught

o view

knowledge,

tructurelassroom

xperiences

n a

way

that

is

consistent

with

the

principles

f

positivism.

In

this

view,

knowledge

s

objective,

bounded

nd

out

there'

"(Woods,

1979,

p.

137).

Classroom

nowledge

s often

treated s

an external

ody

of

information,

the

production

f which

appears

o

be

independent

f

human

beings.

From

his

perspective, bjectiveknowledge

s

viewed as

independent

f time

and

place;

t

becomesuniversalized,historical nowledge.Moreover, t is expressed n a

language

hat is

basically

echnical

and

allegedly

value free.

This

language

s

instrumentalnd defines

knowledge

n terms

hat

are

empirically

erifiable

nd

suited

o

finding

hebest

possible

means or

goals

hat

o

unquestioned.

nowledge,

then,

becomes

ot

only

countable

nd

measurable,

t also

becomes

mpersonal.pp.

52-53;

cf.

R.

Scollon

&

S.

Scollon,

1981,

p.

49)

This article

s

concerned

with

specifying

the

linguistic

means

through

which this

view of

knowledge

is constituted

n

ordinary

classrooms.

Specifically,

it

investi-

gates the constructionof positivistic, objective, or technical knowledge in the

interactional

equences

of routine

esting

practices,proposing

hat

esting

activities

evoke a

positivistic display

of school

knowledge

and

encourage

conditions

under

which

such a

perspective

prevails.

In

focusing

on

the

language

of

testing,

the

study

assumes

thatthe

dominant

orm of school

knowledge

is

initially

constituted

n the

minimal contexts of classroom interaction

(cf.

Mehan,

1973, 1978;

Mehan

&

Wood,

1976).

In

other

words,

students learn

and

appropriate

school-valued

knowledge through

ocally

managed,

routine school

acts.

This

approach

eeks

to

locate the

positivistic knowledge

referred

o

by

Giroux

(1981)

and other critical

pedagogists, as well as to identify the interactionalmeans throughwhich it is

socialized and

maintained.

Previous

interaction-based

studies of

testing

have

focused

largely

on

standardized

ntelligence

or

achievement

ests

(e.g.,

Cicourel

et

al.,

1974;

Marlaire

&

Maynard,

1990;

Mehan, 1973,

1978).

This

body

of research

has

elucidated

the kinds

of

face-to-face

encountersconstitutive

of standardized

esting

practices

and has

investigated

the

knowledge

dimension

of

testing

from

several

perspec-

tives,

each

largely

congruent

with the

findings

discussed

here.

Several

studies

have

documented,

for

example,

that

neither

the

testing

environment

nor

the

resulting grade take into account the complexity of students' knowledge or

reasoning

processes (MacKay,

1974; Mehan, 1973, 1978;

Roth,

1974).

MacKay,

in

particular, argued

that

the

production

of

gradable,

objective

answers

in

standardized

esting

arbitrarily

imits

display

of

the

knowledge

students

possess,

so that a test often becomes a "trivial test

of

vocabulary"

p.

238)

in

which

an


4/27

TESTING

ANDTHECONSTRUCTION

F KNOWLEDGE

127

epistemology

of

"knowledge

as

puzzles"

or

"guessing

game" (p.

236)

prevails.

The concern

raised

by MacKay

and

others

s that

a

test score neverthelessbecomes

an institutional act thatpurports o representstudentknowledge and frequently

forms

the basis for

subsequent

educational

decision

making.

CLASSROOM ESTINGPRACTICES

The

presentanalysis

follows

from this work

by

focusing

on

the

linguistic

construc-

tion

of

knowledge

in

the

environment

of classroom

testing.

Here

testingpractices

are

taken

to

mean

the

sorts

of

weekly

to

biweekly

classroom tests constructed

by

the teacher

or

textbook

publisher,

rather han

the standardized

chievement ests

more

generally

considered he

proper

domainof

testing.

Classroom

esting

is a

far

more

frequent

experience

in

the

lives

of

schoolgoers

and thus

represents

a

more

pervasive

context

or

the socialization

of

school-valued

knowledge.

The classroom

test also has

long-term consequences

in

the form of recorded

grades

whose

cumulative effects are seen

both in

periodic reports

and

ultimately

in

students'

futureacademic

choices.

In the

classes observed

for

this

study,

routine

tests

were

generally part

of

a

three-pronged equence

of

events:

(a)

a

review

of curricular ontent n

preparation

for the test

(hereafter

eferred

o as

the

pretest review), (b)

the test

itself,

and

(c)

the

return

and review of corrected

ests

(hereafter

alled the

posttest

review).

This

sequence

constitutesa final

boundary

o a

sequential

unit of

classroom

work

and

represents

a

set of

key

activities

(Hymes,

1962)

for

investigating

what kind

of

knowledge

mastery

onstitutes

school success.

Each successive event

in

the

testing

sequence

constitutes a

re-presentation

of curricular nformation

hrough

which

previous

content

presentations

redistilled to

a

display

of whatcounts as successful

school

learning.

The

pretest

and

posttest

reviews are

an

emphatic

display

of

school-valued

knowledge

because

they

represent

verbal reiterations

or

pre-itera-

tions) of actual test items and highlightteacherperceptions

of critical curricular

information.

n

the discussion

to

follow,

analysis

centers

largely

on these review

events,

focusing

on the

kinds

of

question-answer

sequences

that demandstudent

participation

n the overt

construction

of a cultural

view of

knowledge.

LANGUAGE

OCIALIZATION

Schieffelin

and Ochs's

(1986a;

Ochs &

Schieffelin,

1984)

recent articulation

of

language socialization provides a motivatingtheoretical ramework or investi-

gating

the social

construction

of

knowledge

in

the school

setting.

In their

view,

language

forms and

practices

represent

a

pervasive

but

implicit

means

through

which

cultural

knowledge

is

conveyed

to novices.

Linguistic

features and the

sequential organizations

within

which

they

occur are seen to encode "socio-


5/27

128

POOLE

cultural nformationn

acts and

activities,

dentities

nd

relationships,

eelings

and

beliefs and other

domains

that]

must be

inferred

by

childrenand other

novices" Ochs,1987,p. 10).1

Ochs's

1984, 1988)

study

of

clarification

tylesamong

Samoan ndmiddle-

class U.S.

caregivers rovides

compelling

xample

of this kindof inferential

language

ocialization. his

study

demonstrates

he

relationbetween

aregiver

discourse

ractices

nd

epistemological

tances

n the two

settings.2

he

argued

that

n

Western

amoa,

here s a

dispreference

or

speculating

s to

the mental

states

of

others,

a

domain

beyond

the limits of what

one can know.

Ochs

demonstrated

ow

Samoan

aregivers

o not

expand

r

guess

he

meaning

f

young

children's nclear

utterances.

nstead,

hey

ask

for

repetition.

his

interactional

patternwasinterpretedsameansof socializing ovices ntotheknowledgehat

the

mental

tates

of

othersarenot

appropriatebjects

of

conjecture.

his

is the

converse

f

middle-class .S.

caregivers,

orwhoma

primary

mode

of

clarification

withchildren

s

the

expansion

r

"expressed

uess,"

mode

corresponding

o the

commonU.S.

practice

f

guessing

whatothers

re

hinking.

The

present

tudy

ollows

from

language

ocialization

esearch

n

focusing

on a minimal

nteractional

equence

hrough

whichnovices

are socialized o a

particular pistemological

tance.

Here

the

objects

of

investigation

re the

question-answer

equences

that

typify

tests

and test-related vents. These

sequences redominatentheactivities ndernvestigationnd, argue, epresent

symbolic

nstantiationsf a

positivistic

iew of

knowledge.3

DATACOLLECTION

The

data

for

the

study

were

gathered

n

three

public

uniorhigh

schools in a

large

urban rea

of

southern

California. his

region

of

the

schooldistrict

erves

'The discourse

orientation

of

this

model of

language

socialization

contrasts

with the

grammatical

focus of the Sapir-Whorfhypothesis.Schieffelin andOchs(1986a) proposedthat"Itis time to shake

the dust

off of the

original Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

[and]

rid it

of

its extreme

deterministic

interpretations"p.

169;

cf.

Ochs, 1984;

R. Scollon & S.

Scollon,

1981).

In

their

view,

language

and

culture

are

in

dynamic

relation,

with

interaction

always

implying

the

possibility

of cultural

change.

Furthermore,

ovices

are

seen as active

contributors o

the

socialization

process

who

can affect and

alter cultural

patterns.

20chs also tied the

respective

clarification

styles

of

the Samoan and middle-class

U.S.

caregivers

to

a wide

range

of cultural

phenomena,

such

as whether

experts typically

accommodateto novices

(as

middle-class U.S.

caregivers

do)

or the reverse.

3The

definition of socializationassumedhere

(and

in the

Ochs

and

Schieffelin, 1984,

framework)

is takenfrom

Wentworth's

1980)

model

of

socialization

as "an actual

interactional

isplay

of the so-

cioculturalenvironment"

p.

68):

"That

model directs

inquiry

toward the interaction

that

constitutes

socialization,

rather han

continuing

o

encourage

attention

o the

psychological

outcomes of the

proc-

ess"

(p.

83,

italics

added).

In other

words,

the issue here is not the

extent to which novices internalize

the

culturalnorms and values

through

which

the

school

operates

but

the

constitution

of those cultural

norms and

values

as

displayed through

nteractional

equences

of test-relatedevents.


6/27

TESTING AND THE

CONSTRUCTION

OF KNOWLEDGE 129

a

predominantly

working-class

Latino

population

hathas

been established

n the

area

for several

generations.

n one

of the

schools,

students

were bussed

in

from

thegreatermetropolitan rea or a math-science"magnet"program,but otherwise

students n the

classes observedwere residents

of the

surrounding

eighborhoods.

In

this

district,

the

administration

had mandated

that each student be

given

a

minimum

of

two

grades per

week for each class

attended,

a

policy

that

seemed

to

encourage

the

kind

of

testing

events

analyzed

here.

Two

eighth-grade

U.S.

history

teachers,

Mrs. Wells4

and

Mr.

Chavez,

and

one

seventh-grade

geography

teacher,

Mr.

Grey,

participated

n

the

study.

Over

the course

of

the

study,

I

observed

approximately

50 class

hours,

39

of which

were

audiotaped

and/or

videotaped.

In

addition,

the

study

included

numerous

informaldiscussions with each teacheras well as more structured nterviewsat

the end

of the

data-collection

period.

The

primaryperiod

of

data

collection

lasted

from

January

o

May

of

1988

and was

preceded by

a

pilot

study duringJanuary

and

February

of

1987

in

two of Mrs.

Wells's

eighth-grade

U.S.

history

classes.

The

following

year,

I

observed classes

of all

three

teachers,

focusing

on

one or

two class

periods

with

each.

The

data selected for this

analysis

include

transcripts

of

two

pretest

reviews,

six

posttest

reviews,

and the written tests

from which each derives.

The

data

were transcribed

using

a

modified

form of standard

conversation-analytic

conventions,listed in AppendixA. Each teacher conductedpretestreviews as a

means

of

preparing

students

immediately

prior

to a

test and

posttest

reviews as

a means of

going

over

test answers to

allow

students

to review

what

they

had

missed.

The

original

study

focused

solely

on the

posttest

review and the

attendant

written

texts.

Hence,

the

data

of

the

pretest

reviews are less extensive. Two

pretest

reviews

are

included

here,however,

because the

interaction

hat

constitutes

them resembles so

closely

thatof the

posttest

activities

(see

Example

I

to follow

shortly).

Informationrelevant to

the

eight

test

review

(TR)

events

is

listed

in

Table

1;

the tests themselves are

found

in

Appendix

B.

With the exception of TR-3 (a posttest review of a quiz on the U.S.

Constitution),

ach event in the

corpus

reviews the same test as

at

least

one

other.

TR-1

and

TR-2

are

the

prereview

and

postreview

of the

same test

(Test

I in

Appendix

B),

focused

on a

textbook

chapter

entitled

"The Constitution's

First

Test"

(Ver

Steeg,

1982).

The

same is

true

of TR-4

and

TR-5,

which

are the

prereview

and

postreview

of a

test

covering

U.S.

life

in

the

1920s,

the Great

Depression,

and the New

Deal.

TR-6

also reviews

this same

test,

but

with

a

differentclass.

TR-7

and

TR-8,

posttest

reviews

of a

single

test

with

classes

of

two different

tracks,

derive from a

text unit entitled

"AfricaSouth of the Sahara"

(Kolevzon & Heine, 1977).

*The

names of

participating

eachers

are

pseudonyms.

Students' names have

been

abbreviated

o

preserveanonymity.


7/27

130

POOLE

TABLE

1

Test

Review

(TR)

Data Base

TREvent Teacher Grade Subject Timeof Review

TR-1

Wells 8

U.S.

history

Pretest

TR-2

Wells

8 U.S.

history

Posttest

TR-3

Wells 8

U.S.

history

Posttest

TR-4 Chavez 8 U.S.

history

Pretest

TR-5

Chavez 8 U.S.

history

Posttest

TR-6 Chavez

8 U.S.

history

Posttest

TR-7

Grey

7 World

geography

Posttest

TR-8

Grey

7 World

geography

Posttest

CO-CONSTRUCTEDROPOSITIONS

S

A

LOCUS

OF SCHOOLKNOWLEDGE

The review

events of

this

corpus

resemble other classroom activities

in

terms

of

hierarchical and

sequential organization

(cf.

Mehan,

1979a).

Each

event

is

explicitly

framed

hrough

an

opening

statement

e.g.,

"OK,

I

wanna

go

over

some

things

I

want

you

to know for

the

test tomorrow"

n a

pretest

review or "Now

we're

going

to

go

over

your

test"

in a

posttest review);

ratified

curricular alk

is

segmented

into a

series

of

topically

related sets

(Mehan, 1979a)

or

topic

sequences;

and

topic sequences

in

turn are

overwhelmingly composed

of

initiation-reply-evaluation

(IRE)

sequences,

the

widely

documentedunmarked

sequence

of

classroom interaction

(Griffin

&

Humphrey,

1978; Lemke, 1990;

Mehan, 1979a; Poole, 1990;

Sinclair &

Coulthard,

1975).

In

the

events

of

this

corpus,

the

linguistic encoding

of

curricular

ontent

is

largely

confined to IRE

sequences

that

take the

form of

"test-questions"

or

incomplete

sentence

frames.

Of the

77

topic

sequences

in the

corpus,only

5

take

a

more

extended

orm

thatdoes not

rely

on the

test-question-based

RE

sequence.

Elsewhere

(Poole, 1989)

I

have discussed these

extended

sequences

and

the

reasons

they

occur. The

focus

here,

however,

is

on

IRE

sequences,

which

represent

he

dominantmode

of

presentation.

A

test-question,

also termeda

display

or

known-information

uestion(Long

&

Sato, 1983; Mehan,

1979b),

is used

here in

its discourse

sense

to mean

the

familiar

asymmetricalsequence

in

which

the

expert

asks

a

question

to

which

he or

she

already

has

an answer n

mind

(e.g.,

"Whatcolor

is that?""Where's

your

nose?").

An

incomplete

sentence frame

("Mary

had

a

little

")

represents

a

syntactic

variation

of

this

form.A

unique

characteristic

f test

review activitiessuch as those

represented

n this

corpus

is that the

verbal

test-questionsadditionallyrepresent

literal test

questions

(Poole, 1990);

that

is,

they

uniformly

reflect or

reiterate

he

items

of

the written

est,

as in

Examples

I

and

2 to follow.

Herethe

verbal nitiations

in

the

pretest

and

posttest

reviews

are

essentially

identical to the

written

test

questions.


8/27

TESTINGAND

THE

CONSTRUCTIONF KNOWLEDGE

131

Example

1:

A. Pretest review

(Wells, TR-1)5

T: And whe::re?(.) was the Whiskey Rebellion (0.4) where was the ris-

Whiskey

Rebellion.

T:

Ed-

- -

(0.4)

stop

playing

(0.4)

OK.

(Ab-

-

-)

(Ab):

(

)

T:

Well,

you've given

me a

city.

I

want a state.

(Ab):

Pennsylvania

T:

Shh::

(0.2)

Pennsylvania

s

correct

(0.6)

Pennsylvania

s correct.

B.

Written

test

11.

The

Whiskey

Rebellion took

place

among

farmers

in

(a)

Massachusetts,

(b) Pennsylvania,(c) New York, (d) Maryland.

C. Posttest review

(Wells, TR-2)

T: eleven

uh

Se-

- -

the

Whiskey

Rebellion took

place among

farmers

n,

Se: B.

Pennsylvania

Example

2:

A.

Pretest

review

(Chavez,

TR-4)

T:

All

right

ne:xt

(3.8)

I

want

you

to

kno::w

(1.0)

the nineteen

twenty-

nineteen twenty-fourImmigrationAct.

((students

intervene with

clarification

questions

on

previous

topic))

T:

nineteen

twenty-fou:r:

mmigration

Act

did

what?

(2.0)

Immigration

Act.

Whad

it do?

SI:

No

more

immigration

S2:

oh i- i- it

brang

it

brang

people

from

Mexico

T:

(It)

clo::sed off

immigration

nto this

country

[

S:

(it)

sent them

ba:ck

T:

Nineteen

twenty-four

Immigration

Act

stopped

most

immigration

from

othercountries.

B. Written test

7.

What did the

immigration

act of 1924

do?

Why

did

many

Americans ike

this law?

C. Posttest review

(Chavez,

TR-5)

T:

let's

see.

um:

Immigration

Act of 1924

SI:

oh

stopped immigrants

rom

coming

[

S2: oh

T:

stopped immigrants

rom

coming

'The

data

in

these

examples

have

been

minimally implified

or

presentationurposes.

The

primary

orm

of

such

simplification

s

the omissionof

noncurriculartudentutterances nd the

corresponding

anagerial

tterances

y

the

teacher.


9/27

132

POOLE

1.

T

formulates

roposition

.

2.

T

identifies

constituent

within

proposition.

I-->

3.

T

asks

question

asedon

Y.

[3]

and

[4]

(ideally)

R-->

4.

S(s)

(ideally)

eplies

withY.

reformulate

1].

E-->

5.

T

evaluates,

meaning:

"You

ompleted

he

proposition

formulated"

or

"Youdid

not

complete

he

proposition

formulated."

FIGURE

Propositional

odel

or

est-questionequences.

Ochs,

Schieffelin,

and

Platt

(1979;

cf.

Griffin

&

Humphrey,

1978;

Mehan,

1979)

analyzed

test-question-and-answer

equences

as

comprising

single propo-

sitions

that

span

utterances

by

more than one

speaker.Through

such

sequences,

novice

and

expert

participate

n

the overt

co-constructionof a

single proposition.

In

specific

terms,

the

following initiate-reply sequence

(from

Grey,

TR-7),

T:

what's he

capital

f Zaire.

Ss: Kinshasa

can

be viewed as

constituting

he

single proposition,

"Kinshasa

s the

capital

of

Zaire"

cf.

Poole,

1990).

This

interpretationuggests

that

test-question-based

RE

sequences

constitute overt co-constructionsof

teacher-formulated

ropositions.

Figure

16

proposes

a

sequence

of

cognitive

and social acts

through

which

this

can

occur.

In

this

model,

[1]

and

[2]

represent

a kind of intra-individual

lanning

of the

IRE

sequence

represented

n

[3]

to

[5],

so that the initiationand

reply

moves

([3]

and

[4])

constitute a

reformulation

f the

teacher's

original proposition.

In terms

of publicdiscourse withintheactivity proper, he teacherdetermines heproposi-

tional

content of ratified student utterances.

In

other

words,

to

the extent that

classroom

nteraction s

composed

of

IRE

sequences

nitiated

with some

variety

of

test-question,

hatdiscoursecan be said to

represent

a series

of teacher-formulated

propositions.

The

structure f these

testing

events

provides

that

nearly

all

ratified

student

utterancesoccur in

sequences

of this sort and that

the entire

process

is

enacted

n

both written

the

test)

and

spoken

(the review)

modalities.

In

sum,

a

test-question sequence represents

a

primary

locus

for

displaying

curricular

nowledge

in

the

testing

events of this

corpus. Through

his

sequence,

teacherunderstandingf whatcounts as schoolknowledgeis conveyedto students

"Certain

est-questions

reatthe entire

proposition

as the constituent

and do not

focus on a

single

component.

I would

thus

interpret"identifying

a constituent"

broadly,

meaning

to

identify any part

of the

proposition, ncluding

the

whole

of

it.


10/27

TESTING

ND

THE

CONSTRUCTIONF

KNOWLEDGE

133

through

a

display

that demands their

repeated,

overt

participation.

Seen

in this

light,

the

test-question

becomes a

compelling

tool

for

the

socialization

of

culturallyspecified knowledge,allowing the teacherto control the propositional

content

of ratified student utterances

n

a

mannerconsistent

with

the

dominant

epistemological

orientationof the

school.

TESTCURRICULUM

S A DISPLAY

F FACTS

The

test-question

sequences

that

encode

the bulk

of

curricular

nformation

n

these

data

represent

a

display

of

knowledge

as

discrete

informationunits.

This

display

is constituted

through

a

variety

of

linguistic

and interactionaldevices

that,

when

viewed as a

composite

of

co-occurring

orms,

may

be seen

to index

and

sustain a

positivistic

view of

knowledge.

Through

these

devices,

to

be

identified and

exemplified

in

this

section,

studentsnot

only

observe a

display

of

knowledge

but also are

required

o

participateovertly through

verbal contribu-

tions.

Short

Answers

n

Noun-Phrase

orm

Student

contributions

o

test-question

sequences

are

frequently

in

noun-phrase

form

consisting

of

identifiable entities

such

as

Republican,

John

Adams, Ohio,

FDIC,

or birth

certificate.

For

instance,

in

Examples

3

and

4,

studentcontribu-

tions

are

consistently

in

the

form

of

brief,

unmodified

noun

phrases

that

point

to

an identifiable

entity

or to

a

more

complex,

but

labeled,

phenomenon

such as

"the New Deal."

In

the total

corpus,

66

of

98

(67%)

of the ratified student

reply

moves are constituted

n

this kind of

simple

noun

phrase

form. Ratified curricular

propositions

are underscored.

Example (Wells,

TR-2):

T:

uh se-twelve

Mc-Jay

negotiated

treaty

between he UnitedStates

and,

(0.6)

uh::

Gu--

-

Gu: I

got

it

wrong.

T:

uh:

(0.8)

S:

Great

Britain.

T:

OK

good.

thirteen

he XYZ

affairalmost

brought

he United

States

to

warwith

(1.4)

Va-

- -

Va: A. France.

T: good.

Example

(Chavez,TR-5):

T:

all

right

number hree.

( )

who was

presidentduring

most of

the

depression.


11/27

134

POOLE

S: John F.

Kennedy.

T:

No::

you're hirty

ears

ate.

Ss:

TheodoreRoosevelt.

S:

Roosevelt

T: FRANKLIN.

S:

Roosevelt.

Ri-:

Franklin

Roosevelt.

T:

his whole

program

was,

(

)

S: he

(does)

the

new deal

Ss:

[new

deal

((Ss talking, aughing))

T: all

right

please

et

me

continue.

(T

leaning

on desk

waiting

or

quiet))

all

right.

Roosevelt's

wholenew

(.)

program

s

called,

SS: new

deal

T: new deal.

(.)

all

right.

The

point

here is not

simply

that

student utterances

are

constructedas noun

phrases

but also that

the

linguistic

form

of the teacher's

nitiationmoves

virtually

demands a

noun

phrase

reply.

In

much of

the

data,

the

structure

of

teacher

initiations as incomplete sentence frames or product-oriented Mehan, 1979)

WH-questions

(who,

what,

etc.)

dictates that ratified

replies

will

be

constructed

as

noun

phrases.Throughout

he

corpus,

initiations hat would elicit

explanations

or

the

linking

of facts or ideas

are

largely neglected

in favor of

these

forms,

which evoke more

bounded,

discrete

utterances

rom

students.

Definitions

The

converse

of

short

noun

phrase

answers occurs

in

definition

questions

in

which the teacher articulatesa noun phrase and the student contributes the

propositional

predicate,

as

shown

in

Examples

5,

6,

and

7:

Example

5

(Chavez,

TR-5):

T:

bracero

s:

Da:

a

farmer

romMexico

(that

comes over

here)

to

work

or a while and

then

goes

back.

T:

and

then

goes

back.

Example6 (Wells, TR-2):

T:

...

at

any

rate

a

cabinet

was whatanswerum Os-

- -

(0.4)

Os:

E. a

group

of

(0.4)

Presidentialdv- advisors

T:

good

the s- excise

tax,

Mi-

- -

Mi:

C.

a tax

on

imports.

T: all

right. (quickly))

o no no


12/27

TESTINGND

THE

CONSTRUCTIONFKNOWLEDGE

135

Mi:

uh--oh

(0.8)

C.

a

tax on

goods

madesold

(or

usedwithin

he

country)

T:

OK that'sone of

the two

that

have

been

mixed

up

Example (Grey,

TR-8):

T:

Jo

- - -

what'sa

landlocked

country.

Jo:

(no

wateraround

t).

T:

there'sno

wateraround

t,

(.)

what

s aroundt?

Jo:

land.

T:

land.

other

countries,

ight.

Although

this

type

of definition

question

requires

a more

complex

linguistic

construction rom students,discretenounphraseforms retain discourse salience

in the teacher's

utterances.

n

other

words,

definition

questions

constitutevariation

in the

organizational

display

of

knowledge,

not a

change

in

the

underlying

epistemology. Eighteenpercent

of the IRE

sequences

in the

corpus

areconstructed

as

definitions,

so

that,

together

with the

short-answernoun

phrases

discussed

earlier,

they

account for

85%

of

all

ratified

curricular

propositions.

BaldAssertions

The

question

types already

specified

serve to create

propositions

that are

linguistically

structured

as

"facts"

so

as

to seem

incontrovertible

and without

value

or

affect. Bald

assertive

clauses,

such as "The river

that borders

he

Congo

is

(the)

Zaire"or

"Charles

Lindbergh

made)

the

first

solo

flight

over the

Atlantic,"

constitute the

primary

form of

content

presentation.

These assertions are

consistently

constructed

rom

a

third-person

perspective, resulting

in

curricular

knowledge

that

is

depersonalized

and

separated

rom

participants

n the manner

described

by

Giroux

(1981;

see

passage

quoted

earlier).

In

addition,

there

is

virtually

no

occurrence

of

modal verb forms

(e.g., would,might,could)

or

other

evidential markers

that would

serve to index affective stance or

degree

of

(un)certainty

oward a

proposition

(Biber

&

Finegan,

1988; Chafe,

1986;

Ochs,

1988).

Chafe

(1986)

interpreted videntiality

"in

its broadest

sense,"

"to cover

any

linguistic

expression

of attitudes

toward

knowledge"

(p.

271).

In addition

to

modal

forms,

such

expressions

include markers of

reliability

(e.g.,

surely,

perhaps, probably,primarily),

belief

forms

(e.g.,

suppose,

guess),

inductive orms

(e.g.,

obvious, seem,

evidently),

hedges

(sort

of,

kind

of,

about),

and forms

signaling expectations(e.g., of course, oddly enough, infact, actually).

In

other

words,

evidentials

represent

he

kind

of

linguistic

form that

can

reduce

the bald

assertive status of

a

proposition;

however,

they

occur

only

rarely

in

the

testing

language investigated

here. This

lack

of

overt

perspective

marking

creates

an

effect of

certainty

with

respect

to test content-that

is,

these are

unarguable

propositions

toward which

any degree

of

speculation

seems

inappropriate.


13/27

136

POOLE

Segments

rom

one lesson

(Wells,

eighth-grade

.S.

history)

llustrate ow

these

sortsof

linguistic

markers

an

occur

regularly

utside

he test or review

environmentn a manner hatcontrastswith the corpusanalyzedhere.In the

followingexcerpt Example

),

a

range

of

forms

and

expressions

ndicates

he

teacher's

attitude oward

the curricular

nformation

s well

as

toward

the

textbook's

omission

of

the

topic

of

federalism:

Evidential

markers nd more

lengthy

expressions

f

attitude re

underscored).

Example

(Wells):

Well

it's

certainly

ne of the most

if

not the

most fundamental

h

principles

f

the

Constitution

nd

yet

(0.6)

your

textbook

oesn'teven mention

t.

OK

lately:

uh

many

observers

eel

(0.6)

that

he

national

overnment

ay

be

uh:

(0.4)

you

know t's likea-

(0.4)

t's

sort

of

likea

(0.4)

pendulum

hich:

ometimes

one side

has more

or seems

o

be ha- uh

having

more

power

hananother.

0.6)

but

n

recent

ears,

he trend eems o

be

toward

0.4)

the:

uh

national

overnment

uh

having

most

of

the

power.

Discrete

nd

Isolable

Topics

Discourse

cohesion or

topic continuity

across the

test-question equences

described

earlier

seems

to derive

largely

from

numbered

tems

on

a

printed

page

rather

han roman

integrated

r

holisticdiscussion

f the

text-based

opics.

Few

of

the

initiate-reply sequences

are

connected to one

another

through anaphora

(text-bound

inguistic

reference),

with

the

average

number

of IRE

sequences per

topic

or

test item

being

only

1.28.

This

results

in

a

display

of

seemingly

independent,

decontextualized

units and

further

nstantiates

he

display

of

school

knowledge

as

a

body

of

discrete information

tems.

The

most

striking

example

of this

lack of

topic

continuity

occurs in

TR-2

(see

Examples

3

and

6),

which

is based

on a

textbook

publisher's

test-a

document that

instantiates

in

the

extreme the claims made

in

this

article with

respect

to

knowledge

objectification.

In other

events,

particularly

hose

conducted

y

Mr.

Chavez,

ets of

topically

connected

IRE

sequences,

such

as

those in

Example

4,

do exist.

Even

here,

however,

he sets

remaindiscreteand

independent

f

one

another,

nd

topic

sequencing

erives rom

numberedtemson

the

printedpage

rather han rom

situated

onnections

mong

he discourse

opics.

Curricularontent s

Discrete

ymbol

Several ommon est-item

onstructions-multiple

hoice,

matching,

nd

outlin-

ing-further

encourage

he

linguistic

encoding

of

a

positivist

perspective

hrough

alphabetic

nd

numericalorms hatserve

to

represent

urricular

nowledge.

n

Example

9,

propositional

ontent

from a

matching

exercise is

deictically

referred


14/27

TESTINGAND THECONSTRUCTION

F KNOWLEDGE

137

to

by

studentsasD and

B,

with the result hat

heirutterances

ive

discourse

salience

not to curricular ontent

but to its

objectification.

n the

teacherevaluation

moves,

curricular ontent s madeexplicit butremains ied to the alphabetic ymbol.

Example

9

(Wells,

TR-2):

T: let's

go

on

to

interest ineteen

0.6)

um

Ca-

- -

do

you

have

nterest,

2.0)

Ca:

D?

T: did

you

writewhat t

was?

Ca:

no

T:

all

right

t

is

D

it's

moneyput-

(1.2)

moneypaid

or

the use

of

money

(0.4)

(is)

the

way they

put

it.

T: Fi-

- -

how

'bout

elector?

Fi:

B?

T:

OK

you--did

you

write

what it

was?

F:

no.

T:

all

right

B a

person

who

uh

(1.8)

votes

for

the President.

A

similar

phenomenon

occurs

in answers

to

multiple-choice

questions

(see

Example

10),

in

which the

letter choice

is

verbalizedas a

portion

of the

student's

verbal

contribution,

again

creating

a

context

where content is tied

to a discrete

symbol.

Example

0

(Wells,

TR-2):

T:

(2.6)

OK

let's- uh: if

you'll

do

the second

one the

Constitutiondoes

not

provide

o:r,

(1.6)

Ma-

-

-.

Ma:

A.

development

f

politicalparties

T:

good.

In

Example

11,

the

teacher

explains

how

an

outline

question

should

have

been

answered.

The outline task

requires

hat

nformation

be broken

nto

units,

each

unit

tied to a numericalor

alphabet

symbol,

andthose

symbols arranged

and

manipu-

lated

with

respect

to one another.The

language

of

Example

10

incorporates

hose

features

so that

content

is

verbalized

in relation to

an

emphatically

articulated

number

or

letter.

Example

11

(Wells,

TR-3):

T:

Let's

say

A

was

Congress.

Then under

that

you

would

want to have

one

the House of

Representatives

and

two the

Senate

... Now

another

way

of

tackling

t

is

...

(0.4)

some of

you

said

um

(0.8)

you

madetwo Roman

numeralsousaid he- (0.4)(th-) Roman umeral ne(0.4)theUnited

States

Constitution

provides

three

branches

g-)

of

government

and then

you

said let's

say

A

(0.6)

Congress,

B

(0.6)

the:

President

(0.4)

C the:

Supreme

Court

and under

A

you

ha-

you

should have one

and two the

House and-

and uh

(0.4)

the

Senate,...


15/27

138

POOLE

Through

he various

inguistic

and

interactional

trategies

outlined

here-short

noun

phrase

and definitional

answers,

bald assertive

clauses,

lack of

topic

continu-

ity,andtheencodingof informationnrelation o a discretesymbol-the curricular

utterances

of this

corpus

function

to

signify

and sustain a

cultural

perspective

hat

values

the

learning

of information nitsas

a

form of

knowledge.

The

test-question-

derived

propositions

of the

corpus

are

particularly

bvious

linguistic

instantiations

of the culture

of

positivism

attributed

o the

school context

by

Giroux

(1981)

and

others.From

the

perspective

of

language

socialization,

these

sequences

constitute

a

powerful

orm

of

display

through

which

novices are directed o

participate

n

the

linguistic

structuring

f

positivistic knowledge.

Furthermore,

hat

such

knowledge

counts

in terms

of

a

recorded and

lasting grade

enhances its

importance

in

representinghe kind of knowledgethat counts in school.

TESTING

AS THE

OBJECTIFICATIONF KNOWLEDGE

A

comparison

of

the

knowledge

content

displayed

in these

sequences

with

previous

presentations

of the same information

suggests

that

testing

events

encourage

he

objectification

f

complex knowledge

into

measurable

omponents.

Examples

12

and

13

demonstratehow the same information

s

conveyed

in four

contexts:

the three test-related vents and

a

lesson

context

preceding

them. These

data

show

that the

objective framing

of curricular ontent

in

the

testing

events

is not

necessarily

matched

in

its

original

presentation.

Rather

the

practice

of

testing

itself

appears

o demand

he kind

of

linguistic encoding already

described.

In

Example

12,

the

lesson

presentation

of

the

U.S.

government's

forcible

return

of

braceros to Mexico

in

the face of

domestic

unemployment

is transformed

through

testing

to

"a

bracero is a farmer

from

Mexico

who

comes

up

here to

work for

a while

and

then

goes

back."

Example 2 (Chavez-"braceros"):

A. Lesson

T: r'memberwhat

hey

did to

the Mexicanswho came

up

here to work

on

the

farms

right?

he braceros

..

)

shipped

em

back

to

Mexico

when

Americansouldn't

ind

jobs

(

..

)

((later

n

the sameclass

period))

S:

((reading

rom

book))

In

many regions

of the

Southwest,

Mexican

immigrants

aced

prejudice

nd

segregation.

However,

heir

work

was

important

o

the

growth

f theSouthwest.

n

the 1920s

heybegan

o

have

better

ob opportunities.

T: maybe.1.2)youknowwhentheydidn'tkick 'em backout to Mexico.

B.

Pretest eview

TR-4)

T:

((writes

"bracero"))

you

knowwhata braceros?

Ss: Farmer


16/27

TESTING

ND

THE

CONSTRUCTION

F KNOWLEDGE

139

Ss:

( )

S:

they pay

'em

a littlebit

S: yeah

T:

'n

then

they

send 'em

back

(..)

but(

..

)

all

right(

..

)

braceros

a

farmer

romMexico

who

works

up

here

or

a

littlebitand hen

goes

back.

C. Written

est

10.

Identify

wo

of the

following:

Charles

Lindbergh

Prohibition

Bracero

Pasadena

reeway

D. Posttest

eview

TR-5)

T: braceros:

Da: a

farmerrom

Mexico

that

omesover

here)

o work or

a

while

and hen

goes

back.

T: and

then

goes

back.

Close examination

of

these

examples

suggests

that he definitional

onstruction

of

the test item

may

work to

discourage

mention of

the

more

politically

charged

issues central

to the lesson

talk of

Example

12A,

where braceros are

depicted

largely

as victims

of

U.S.

prejudice

and economic conditions.

This

presentation

is echoed in the review priorto the test, 12B, with "they pay 'em a little bit"

and

"

'n

then

they

send

'em

back"-two utterances hat

are

syntactically

parallel

to

the

presentation

n

12A. In

each,

the

subject,

they,

refers

to

Americans,

and

the

object,

'em,

refers to

braceros-a

construction hat

seemingly

facilitates

the

portrayal

of

braceros as

victims.

In

the remainderof the test-related

talk,

the

definitional

question

("Identify

bracero")

demands an answer

where

bracero

functions

as sentential

subject

In

this

linguistic

context,

the

teacher's

predicate

construction

n

12B

("bracero

s a

farmer

from Mexico who works

up

here

for

a

little

bit and then

goes

back")

is

decidedly

neutral when

compared

with the

lesson context ("shipped 'em back to Mexico when Americanscouldn't find

jobs;

kicked 'em back out

to

Mexico").

This

neutrality

s

subsequently

echoed

in

the student's

response

in

12D.

The teacher

12A)

also

questions

the factlike

presentation

f the

textbook

with

"maybe

1.2)

you

know

when

they

didn't kick

'em

back out to

Mexico,"

explicitly

disputing

the text's claim

of better

ob

opportunities

or

Mexican

immigrants

n

the

1920s.

This

utterance

further

demonstrates

he sorts of evidential

markers

that can

distinguish

the

language

of

teaching

from that of

testing.

The

lesson

language

in

Example

13A

focuses on

the

K.K.K. and is

similarly

distinctfrom the testing discourse that follows it.

Example

13

(Chavez-"K.K.K."):

A. Lesson

T:

1919

K.K.K.

tarts

again.

Now

watch

this all

right

hhh

K.KX.K.:

tands

for:,

Ss: Ku Klux

Klan


17/27

140

POOLE

T: Ku Klux Klan

right?

(0.4)

And:

they basically

disappeared

rom

the South

about 1890

(1.0)

all

right?

The-

they really disappeared.

BY: 1919

though

.hh

right

after we

get

out of World

War

I

...

(1.0)

all

right,

a

group

is

gonna

start

up again

in

Ohio

(0.8)

it's

gonna

be

in

the North not

the South

this time.

And

they're gonna

take over the state

governments

like

the

governor

and

th-

th- st- lieutenant

governor

of Ohio and

Indiana

0.6)

all

right

they're gonna

become

this

really

popular

group.

And this

time

though they

don't

just

hate Blacks

(1.2)

Now

(0.4)

and this is

the same

group

today.

They

hate

Blacks

of course.

(1.2)

((softly

and

dramatically))

Catholics:,

(0.4)

Mexicans:,

(0.4)

Asians,

(0.4)

Jews

(1.6)

OK?

Anybody

who

is

not White

Anglo-Saxon

Protestant

1.2)

OK?

So

they

hate

basically

everybody.

(1.2)

all

right

(

.

.

)

who

is

not like

them. And this

is

the

same

group thatwe really have- that- that'sreally today. all right.But they

started

again

in

Ohio.

All

right?

So what

you're

gonna

see is that

you

know

all

along

in this textbook

'n

partially

t's

my

fault

too

you've

been

hearing

that most

prejudice

happens

down

South.

All

right?

But

that's

just

not

true. There's

a

lot

and

actually

you

can

even

say

more so

up

North.

B. Pretest

review

(TR-4)

T:

((writes

1919))

1919

K.K.K. started

again

where?

S:

uh

S: uh

in(..)Ohio

S: Ohio

S:

Indiana

T: Ohio

(

..

)

It started

again up

North. Ohio first and then

Indiana.

S: K.K.K.

T: all

right?

and this time

they

hated,

S:

everybody

(

. .

)

Asians

T:

Asians. Blacks

S:

Jews

T:

Jews

S: Well

they always

hated

Blacks

T: Catholics.Mexicans. anybodywho's not White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

S:

who didn't

they

like

before?

T:

just

Blacks.

It's

mostly

an

anti-Black

organization.

C. Written test

5. When did the K.K.K.

start

again?

Where?

Who are

they

against?

Name 4.

D. Posttest review

(TR-5)

T: NEXT. when

did

the K.K.K. start

again?

Ss: 1919

T: you know th-it was odd. this is one thateverybodygot.

S:

you

(..)

tell

us.

T:

all

right.

(..)WHERE?

S: in Ohio.

T: Ohio. NOT Florida.

Contrary

o

popular

belief.

S:

((quietly)) They

were

against

Mexican

(

) (Jews)

and Chinese.


18/27

TESTING

AND THE

CONSTRUCTIONOF

KNOWLEDGE

141

The

original

lesson

presentation

n

13A

is

marked

by

a

range

of evidentialforms

indicating speaker

attitude

toward

propositional

content

(e.g.,

basically, really,

of course) as well as a more elaborate expression of disagreementwith the

textbook.

Example

13A

is

also

constructed as a

narrativemarked

by

several

linguistic

devices

that function to

heighten

listener

involvement

(Chafe,

1981;

Tannen,

1982).

For

example,

in

describing

the

events

of

1919,

the

use of

present

and future

(gonna)

tenses

and the

deictic

forms,

this

time

and

this,

contribute

o

the

story's

sense

of

immediacy.

In

addition,

the

affective

intensity

of

the

account

is

strengthened

by

the teacher's

shifting prosody, emphatic

pausing,

and his

repeated

lexical choice of

hate.

As

the

testing

events

progress,

however,

the

future and

present

tenses

shift to

past,

hate

becomes

a

more neutral

be

against,

and evidentialforms no longeroccur. Accompanyingthese linguisticchanges is

a

progressiveobjectification

of

curricular

ontent,

so

that,

by

the

final

test

review,

only

the date and

place

are

ratified

by

the

teacher.7

Examples

12 and 13

point

to

an

increased

endency

towarda

bounded,

discrete

display

of

school

knowledge

as

the class moves

from

lessons to

the

test-related

sequence

of

events.

In these

instances,

content

is

originally presented

in terms

of

affectively

and

politically

charged

ssues. As

the

sequence

of

test-related

vents

progresses,

however,

those

issues

recede,

and the

presentation

of

knowledge

becomes reduced

to the

display

of bounded

object

units. This

discrete

encoding

of curricularnformation epresentsa neutralpresentation f curriculum n which

conflict

and its attendant auses

are

implicitly

devalued.

In

Apple's

(1990)

terms:

The

perspective

ound

n schools eans

heavilyupon

how all

elements f a

society

...

are

inked o

eachother

n

a functional

elationship,

ach

contributing

o the

ongoing

maintenancef

society.

nternal

issension

nd

conflict

n a

society

are

viewedas

inherently

ntithetical

o

the smooth

unctioning f

thesocial order.

p.

93,

italics

added)

As demonstrated, his tendency toward a display of consensus dominates the

test-question

sequences

of

this

corpus,

even

though

notions of

conflict

might

have marked the

original

lesson

presentation

cf.

Anyon,

1979).

TESTING

NTHE

DEVELOPMENT

OF FACTUALKNOWLEDGE

The

language

of

testing

versus that

of

teaching,

as

constituted

n

these

examples,

parallels a growing body of research analyzing the social development of

discipline-specific

knowledge

as

contextualized across a

range

of

discourse

7The

eacherdid not

acknowledge

he

final studentutterance f this

sequence-"They

were

against

Mexican

( ) (Jews)

and

Chinese."--during

the

final test review

and

registered

surprise

when he

read

it

on the

transcript.


19/27

142

POOLE

environments:

ournal

articles,

laboratory

discussions,

lectures,

and textbooks

(Fleck,

1935/1979; Latour,1987;

Latour

&

Woolgar,

1979;

Myers,

1992; Ziman,

1984). This work has found that early presentationsof academic findings, in

which the status

of

knowledge

is

largely

at

the level

of

claim

(e.g.,

journal

articles),

are characterized

y

a

personal

and

provisional

encoding

of information

(Fleck, 1979),

frequent

reference to

sources

(Latour

&

Woolgar,

1979),

and

evidential constructions

uch as

hedging

or

modality

(Myers,

1992).

By

the time

such

findings

are

incorporated

nto

textbooks,

however,

they

have

typically

become

accepted

within

a

discipline

as

factual

and are

encoded

through

the sort

of bald assertions found

in

the

testing

data

investigated

here.

This

similarity points

to

systemic

connections

between the

two

discourse

environments.The natureof suchconnections s suggestedin Example 14, which

includes both

a test

question

and

the textbook

excerpt

on which it is based.

In

14A,

assertions

n

the text are made

baldly

in a

mannerconsistentwith the studies

cited;

however,

they

are

information-rich n

comparison

with

the

test-question

deriving

from them

(14B).

The

textbook

characterizes he

Sedition Act

as

the

"harshest"

among

a

set of

early

U.S.

laws,

specifying

its

political

origins

and

repressive

consequences.

The test

question,

however,

bypasses

this

information,

so that

all

references

to

conflict,

unconstitutionality,

nd

repression

are avoided.

In

other

words,

if

the diachronic

approach

to the

"life of

a

fact" is

extended

beyond the text, the test of thattext presentation epresentsa next stage, which

may,

as in

this

instance,

further he

process

of

knowledge

objectification.

Example

4:

A. Textbook

xcerpt

Federalists

sed the troubleswith

France o

pass

a

number f laws

in

1798.

The

Federalists

oped

he

laws wouldmake heir

own

party tronger.

The

SeditionAct was the harshest.t

stated hat

anyone

who

spoke

against

the President r members f

Congress

ouldbe finedor

jailed.

This act was

passed

o halt all criticism f the

Federalists,

speciallyby

Republicans.

he

law also went

against

he

rights

of citizens o free

speech

anda free

press,

rights

protected

by

the

Constitution. t

least three editorsof

Republican

newspapers

ere

sent

to

prison.

Ver

Steeg,

1982,

p.

208)

B. Publisher-constructedritten est

A

law the

Federalists

oped

would

strengthen

heir

party

was the

(a)

whiskey

tax

law,

(b)

Jay

Treaty,

c)

Sedition

Act,

(d)

Twelfth

Amendment.

The

congruence

of

the test data

presented

here

with

the textbook

analyses

of

Latour

(1987),

Ziman

(1984),

Myers

(1992),

and others also

points

to the role

both play in the socialization of novices to a field of study, suggesting that the

kind of

knowledge

deemed

suitable for initial

learning

is in

many

instances the

discrete,

boundedsort identified

earlier.Traweek's

1988)

accountof

undergradu-

ate

physics

textbooks articulated his view:


20/27

TESTING AND

THE CONSTRUCTIONOF

KNOWLEDGE

143

Undergraduatehysics

students

re

being

asked o shifttheirattention

rom

what

is visibleand

emotionally ngaging

o the lowerend

of the

scale,

which

he text

proposess fundamental.... They earn hat nformationaught t eachstage s

often

distortedr

partial,

veryrough

approximation

f the

truth,

which s to

be

disclosed

t later

stages.

Novicesare

thought

o

be

unsuited

o

a

full

disclosure

f

truth

n

these

irst

years.

(p.

80,

italics

added)

Recent

analyses

of

novice-expert

learning

encounters

n

nonacademic

ettings,

however,

present

a

contrasting

picture

which

suggests

that he

positivistic

perspec-

tive of

tests

and textbooks

s

not an

inevitable

consequence

of novice

participation.

For

example, Patthey

(1991)

and

Ochs,

Taylor,

Rudolph,

and

Smith

(1992)

documented

language settings (computerlaboratory

consultations

and

family

dinner

conversations,

respectively)

in

which a

complex array

of

problem-solving

strategies

arise

naturally

rom the

social

conditionsof talk

(cf.

Lave,

1988).

Ochs

et

al.

argued,

n

fact,

that

he kindsof

narrative

ctivities

characterizing

he intimate

setting

of dinner time constitute

a

socialization

context

where

children learn

language

habits associated with the

development

of

scientific

theory.

Conversely,

the

data

of

my

study

suggest

that

test-question

sequences

function to

discourage

such

complex

language

behaviors

and

restrict

student

contributions o minimal

responses

that

serve to

reconstruct

eacher-formulated

ropositions.

IMPLICATIONS

The events considered

in

this

study

constitute

a

culturally accepted

form of

bounding

a

learning

sequence

in

which

participants

display

school-valued

knowledge.

The data have

indicated

that

testing

and

test-related

activities evoke

a

phenomenon

of

knowledge

objectification-that

is,

testing

encourages

an

objectifiable,

seemingly

value-freeform

of

knowledge

presentation.

Even where

societally chargedissues such as class, ethnicity, or discriminationdominate a

teacher's

original

presentation

f a

topic,

those

issues

recede

as

the

topic

becomes

part

of a

test

and

information

s

distilled to

its most

basic thematic

relations.The

data further

suggest

that,

in

testing,

the

dominantdiscourse form

through

which

students

participate

in

ratified

curricular

talk is

the

test-question-based

IRE

sequence.

In such

sequences,

the

propositional

content of

student

utterances s

largely

determined

by

the

teacher.

This

characteristic,

have

argued,

rendersthe

test-question

a

powerful

context for

the

socializationof

whatcounts

as

knowledge.

The sort of

knowledge

display

constitutiveof

these events is

consistent with

earlier testing researchpointing to the limitationsof the objectifiedknowledge

required

of standardized

esting

encounters

MacKay,

1974;

Mehan,

1973, 1978;

Roth,

1974).

When viewed in

light

of this

work,

the

findings

here

suggest

an

overwhelming

tendency

for

testing

language

to

frame

curricular

knowledge

in


21/27

144

POOLE

positivistic

terms.8

Testing-language

of

the

kind

investigated

n this

article thus

appears

to inhibit holistic

approaches

e.g.,

critical

thinking

or

problem solving)

to curricular opics; more generally,these results call into questionthe kinds of

routine tests

that

typify

many

school

experiences.

The

limitations

posed

by

the

discrete

raming

of

curricular

nowledge

n

testing,

especially

when considered

vis-a-vis the

classroom lesson

data

presented

here,

point

to

a

need

for alternative

models of

assessment where

school-valued

knowl-

edge

can

be

assessed

in a more

complex

form. It

is

beyond

the

scope

of

this article

to discuss or

identify

such

models;

however,

the

analysis

lends additional

weight

to the

growing

movement

toward "authentic

assessment,"

which

employs

such

tools as

portfolios

and structured nterviews

(see,

e.g.,

Barrs, 1990;

Gardner&

Hatch, 1989; Pearson,1988; Wiggins, 1989; Wolf, 1987-1988). These forms of

assessment

are

designed

to

reflect and

integrate

with

teaching

in a

manner that

avoids

a reductionistic

raming

of

knowledge.

Although

further

anguage-based

research

would

be

necessary

to confirm

such

a

difference,

the

goals

and methods

of authentic

assessment

suggest

that

its

linguistic

constructionwould

represent

a

substantial

departure

rom the

testing

language

documentedhere.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This

work

was

supported

in

part by grants

from

the

University

of

Southern

California

(The

Morkovin

Foundation)

and

from

California

State

University's

Committee

or

Research,

Scholarship,

and

Creative

Activity

and Summer

Faculty

Fellowship

Program.

I

also

wish

to

thank Elinor Ochs and Genevieve

Patthey-Chavez

or

their

helpful

comments

on earlier

drafts of this

article.

REFERENCES

Anyon,

J.

(1979).

Ideology

and United

States

history

textbooks.

Harvard

Educational

Review, 49,

361-389.

Apple,

M.

(1990).

Ideology

and

curriculum.

New

York:

Routledge.

Barrs,

M.

(1990).

The

primary

anguage

record:Reflections

of

issues

in

evaluation.

Language

Arts,

67,

244-253.

"8Elsewhere

Poole,

1989,

1994)

I

have

analyzed

in detail the extensive

differentiating

activity

through

which

the

asymmetry

of

knowledge among

students

s

made

publicduring

he

posttest

review

(when

students

learn their

grades).

The

data of the

present

study suggest

that

this selective

activity

is

facilitated

by

the

positivistic

construction of

knowledge.

Because of its discrete and

bounded

qualities,

the

"knowledge"

of

testing

can

easily

be

ascribed

an

objective

value

in the form of a

grade

or

number,

allowing

and

encouraging grade comparison

and acts of differentiation

mong

students.

In

other

words,

the constitutionof

school

knowledge

as

positivistic

and

objective

in

testing

serves

the selective

process.


22/27

TESTING

AND THE

CONSTRUCTION

OF KNOWLEDGE

145

Berger,

P.,

Berger,

B.,

&

Kellner,

H.

(1973).

The homeless

mind:

Modernization

and

consciousness.

New York:

Random House.

Biber,

D.,

&

Finegan,

E.

(1988).

Adverbial stance

types

in

English.

Discourse

Processes,

11,

1-34.

Chafe,

W.

(1981).

Integration

nd involvement n

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