"Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible"
- Maya Angelou
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Before you read, check out my infographic regarding academic assessment bias here.
I had the opportunity to look into bias and assessment in a recent course I am completing for my graduate degree. For this research assignment, I chose to focus on assessment bias in an educational setting. Academic Assessment bias refers to assessments that unfairly penalize or impact students based on personal characteristics, such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, religion, and place of origin (Kritik, 2018). According to W. James Popham, the three most common sources of bias include racial/ethnic bias, gender bias, and socioeconomic bias (Popham, 2012).
In racial/ethnic bias in assessment, an educator might include a test question that regards race or ethnicity in a negative manner. For example, take a look at Figure 1 below (Popham, 2012)
According to Popham, this specific question is loaded with racial/ethnic biases. For example, the question is looking to assess a student’s understanding of the three mathematical symbols in which the symbols show that one option is better than the other.. Popham argues that if a student was born in the United States, they might have learned at some point that General Custer’s military had been killed by members of Lakota and Cheyenne tribes (Popham, 2012). If a student is aware of this information, then they would most likely choose choice C (Popham, 2012). However, a student might choose a different choice had they not known about this historical event due to racial/ethnic stereotypes and bias. This question also refers to Indigenous Peoples as "Red Men", which is an example of racial/ethnic bias as well.
In gender bias, an assessment question is leading towards a specific gender. Popham references questions that would be set in a context more familiar with one gender or the other, in which students would be more likely to test well on that item and succeed on the test as opposed to the latter group (Popham 2012). An example of a question that would include assessment bias would be a question that specifically asks about a male-only sport, like football. Other genders might be less likely to test well on this question because they are unable to play football on most occasions, making this question an example of gender bias in assessment.
Finally, the last major type of assessment bias is socioeconomic assessment bias. In this type, a student is penalized in a question based solely on their socioeconomic status. According to Popham, this is particularly prevalent on wide-scale tests, like nationally standardized tests (Popham, 2012). An example of socioeconomic bias would be a question that asks about a higher socioeconomic event, or an event that only some people could afford. This could include a question that asks about students going to a NFL football game. Most students in lower economic status areas might not have attended an NFL game, therefore, might not know much about NFL, so they are less likely to be successful on this question. Another example that Popham gives is a question in which students are asked about the best tool to determine if another planet has mountains and rivers on it. The choices are; Camera, Microscope, Binoculars, and Telescope. Students may not be familiar with one or more of these tools as they are expensive tools, so they will be less likely to be successful on this test.
Overall, assessment bias is an alarming problem that needs to be addressed at the higher levels of education. However, there are steps that educators can take to combat assessment bias in questions. These include providing alternate assessments, for example, project-based assessments, adapting classroom culture to be clear about expectations and clarify misunderstandings prior to testing, including rubrics, as well as including more creative elements within assessments. Creative elements can include discussion boards, presentations, and customizable rubrics. Assessment bias is a large problem that is not addressed enough. There are many steps that we can take to become less biased in our assessments.
References
Kritik. “Identify and Address Bias in Academic Assessment.” Kritik, 2018, https://www.kritik.io/resources/identify-and-address-bias-in-academic-assessment#:~:text=What%20is%20Assessment%20bias%3F,religion%20and%20place%20of%20origin.
Popham, J. (2012). Assessment bias: How to banish it. Pearson. http://iarss.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Popham_Bias_BK04.pdf
Quinn, David M.. (2020). Experimental Evidence on Teachers' Racial Bias in Student Evaluation: The Role of Grading Scales. (EdWorkingPaper: 20-241). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/zfnx-k252
Vijver, F.,& Tanzer, N. K. (2004) Bias and equivalence in cross-cultural assessment: An overview, European Review of Applied Psychology, 52(2), 119-135.
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