The proceedings of this blog began back in September with an invocation of the metaphor of exorcism. Some might have found that strange, but the comparison seemed apt to this old altar boy because impressions and ideas, objections and observations, frustrations and fancying associated with the world of testing do afflict me like distracting spirits. […]
The Complete Posts
Are Problems With Tests Really Problems With Authority?
An unexpected telephone conversation this morning, on the 27th day of for this blog, exposed me to a loved one who trusts what Joe Rogan and his guests say about the pandemic. In other words, that person believes that those voices speak with authority. To do so requires a corresponding belief that the so-called official […]
The failure to reconcile social learning with competitive testing schemes
Hard to believe that seven years have passed since Alina Von Davier and I with the expert assistance of Sue Borchardt created this brief animated video on collaborative assessment as part of the Pulling to the Edge series to accelerate innovation in educational measurement. Alina offers some glittering insights in this short film such as “We (educational measurement scientists) measure very very well what we […]
Two Stories of Failed Testing — And Teaching
Stories Day 2 is made much easier because two friends shared stories from their own personal histories of testing that allow me to riff off of them. First, my dear friend and former colleague, Vasu Murti related this example: Sharing my testing story while pursuing Bachelors in India vs. Masters in the US. Bachelors: 5-years Naval Architecure B.Tech program (Focus: ship design, construction […]
Claims matter the most for those deemed different
In the first days of this blog, Testing: A Personal History, a reader who is also a friend wrote me this reaction: “ I’ve really enjoyed your writing on testing. I’ve always hated tests, but I think its’s more an issue of what is done with those test results that informed my experience than the […]
Too Early for Apgar
I was born early. My mother, by then familiar with the routine of births via my four older brothers, insisted the nurse admitting her had made a wrong turn in the corridor at Union Hospital in the Bronx; the labor room was in the other direction. But the nurse replied that there was no need […]
Six Steps Aiding Reinvention
Yep, I said in my previous post that CR Snyder proved that there were six steps to enacting a strategy of hope, steps that are a necessary element of successful reinvention. Nowhere will you find any claim that ascending those steps is easy. Heck, finding a free hour to even contemplate the steps can prove […]
Hope = Crucial Reinvention Strategy
(and I tell how a NYT article in 1991 revealed this to me) Yes, HOPE. The Jesuit scholar, William F. Lynch, defined hope as, “the fundamental knowledge and feeling that there is a way out of difficulty, that things can work out, that we as human persons can somehow handle and manage internal and external […]
Reinvention: Long Story Short
If you talk of fifty years of working life… you have to reinvent yourself. You have to make something different out of yourself…”Peter Drucker Drucker was right about this as he was about so many things. And if you need a refresher as to what we are proposing, you can find the first posts in […]
A Christmas Dog’s Dinner
Yes, sit down (or stand up) for a special holiday canine repast of links about testing and its adjacent domains or what is known as a dog’s dinner this time. And why wouldn’t you be invited, anybody who is interested in measurement is part of a community. At least that seems to be the point […]
Another Dog’s Breakfast of Testing Tidbits? Okay, Brunch.
Cleaning up the files reveals some interesting threads. At least, I found them interesting. Bon appetit. MBTI Again?? As if my recent four part screed about Myers Briggs wasn’t enough… How Koreans fell in love with an American World War II era personality test The MBTI approach to dating appeals to the practicality of the […]
Dog’s Breakfast: Collected Links Going to Waste
In writing this entirely sporadic account of Testing: A Personal History, links surface in various streams where I wade: Twitter (could be leaving that ‘hellscape’ soon), LinkedIn, RSS Feeds, Newspapers, even emailed suggestions from faithful fans. Several that I will not likely get around to using in the near future deserve to be seen here […]
Myers-Briggs Antipathy: Maybe It’s Just My Personality Part V
Myers-Briggs Antipathy: Maybe It’s Just My Personality Part IV Myers-Briggs Antipathy: Maybe It’s Just My Personality–Part III Myers-Briggs Antipathy: Maybe It’s Just My Personality–Part II Myers-Briggs Antipathy: Maybe It’s Just My Personality Googling ‘personality change’ reveals many negative connotations for the phrase. “He had a real personality change” isn’t a statement that we associate often with someone […]
Myers-Briggs Antipathy: Maybe It’s Just My Personality Part IV
Part I Part II Part III Part V Imagine the surprise of an obscure septuagenarian blogger in discovering that the New York Times is writing about his latest subject — MBTI — and getting it wrong. See Overlooked No More: Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers, Creators of a Personality Test The ‘getting it wrong’ part […]
Myers-Briggs Antipathy: Maybe It’s Just My Personality–Part III
Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Why spend precious time discussing the harmless MBTI? My purpose is not to try and change people’s minds about that device. Goodness, how could anyone have the presumption to try and alter opinions anything these days? I love this quote on that point from the […]
Myers-Briggs Antipathy: Maybe It’s Just My Personality–Part II
Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Thanks to Dave Feineman and Mark Frohnsdorff for replying to yesterday’s post. Dave raises some very good points about why people like MBTI and other such personality tests. When it comes to using such tests to give us a sense of surety about ourselves, why […]