The live creature and its expectations for the future

In this, the 20th annual Charles H. Thompson lecture, Dr. Johnson, a widely recognized expert on assessment and measurement issues, posits that past e xperience perceptions and expectations of the future can have important con sequences for the determination of what educational, career, and life exper iences lie in the future for young learners. In her presentation, she exami ned high-stakes test performance and test use as a function of several fact ors, tracing the history of research on modern standardized testing instrum ents as well as scaling and validity issues, particularly as they relate to considerations of diverse racial/ethnic groups and social classes of stude nts.