Routine Testing Practices and the Linguistic Construction if Knowledge
- 1 June 1994
- journal article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Cognition and Instruction
- Vol. 12 (2) , 125-150
- https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532690xci1202_3
Abstract
This article examines the linguistic encoding of curricular knowledge in routine classroom testing events. Focusing on transcript data collected in a qualitative study of junior high school social studies classrooms, I argue that the dominant epistemological orientation of testing events is positivistic and values a discrete, bounded form of knowledge. The analysis centers on the language of review activities that typically precede and follow classroom tests; specifically, it focuses on interactional sequences that demand students' verbal participation in a culturally specified orientation to knowledge. A comparison of the language of these testing events and earlier lesson presentations of the same curricular information suggests that testing encourages and exaggerates the extent to which a positivistic view of knowledge prevails.Keywords
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