Introduction

Public scrutiny of standardized assessment (SA) has been well documented on mass media platforms. There has been a sharp decline in public support of SA in recent years (OISE, 2015). The public has the ability to influence policy by pressuring governments to change their SAs (Alberta Education, 2013). However, problems may arise when the public is not well informed of the purposes and benefits of SAs. Public’s opinions may solely be based on popularize assumptions from social medias and personal experiences. Such misunderstanding of SA may lead to test misuse, dispersing consequential validity – or whether the assessment is being used for its intended purposes and the consequences of doing so (Messick, 1989).

Objective

The purpose of this paper is to educate the public on the importance of consequential validity, explaining the importance of using SA appropriately, the true purposes of SA, and to dispel common myths that are often used as the public’s argument against SA.

Methodology

A literature review was performed on the consequences of misunderstanding the intentions of SA, on public knowledge, and the public perceptions of SA to draw a big picture on providing suggestions.

Results

Results from the literature review demonstrated the need to increase public understanding of SA. For example, it was found that the number of sources parents used in understanding SA is positively correlated with positive opinions, and that fewer than 40% of the sample Ontario parents paid attention to the posted public reports on SA, indicating personal experiences and beliefs might play a big role in their perceptions (Mu & Childs, 2005).

Conclusions

This study has indicated a need to increase the public’s education of SA awareness. For example, increasing emphasis on the benefits of appropriate uses of SA. More transparencies of information on the SA through different channels from the assessment developers to the public should be provided.