Task Structure Design: Beyond Linkage

The role testing can play in ascertaining and improving the effects of educational programs and services is analyzed. Our point of view maintains that the connection between tests and insturction is best made integrally through an understanding of the design of learning tasks rather than through the use of techniques that attempt to join or to link the now-separate domains of instruction and testing. The context for task structures is described, and their use in developing instruction and tests is considered. The limitations of such an approach in practice are discussed and feasible approximations outlined. Finally, the research agenda in this area is broadly sketched.