Writing assessment's "debilitating inheritance": Behaviorism's dismissal of experience

<p>In this project, I examine the legacy of behaviorism's dismissal of experience on contemporary writing assessment theory and practice within the field of composition studies. I use an archival study of John B. Watson's letters to Robert Mearns Yerkes to establish behaviorism's systematic denial of experience and its related constructs: mind, consciousness, thought, emotions, purpose, and meaning. I trace this denial through the efficiency movement's effects on education and educational measurement in the early 20th century and the establishment of the behaviorist infrastructure of assessment---an infrastructure that contributed; paradoxically, to the early focus in composition studies on experience. I analyze contemporary writing assessment's principles and practices for remnants of behaviorism's dismissal of experience. I conclude by proposing a new principle of principles for writing assessment based on the concept of experience.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Year

2013

Author dc:creator

• Wilson, Maja Joiwind

Contributors dc:contributor

• Thomas Newkirk

• Education
• Educational Psychology
• Tests and Measurements
• English/Composition Studies

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/708

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholars.unh.edu:dissertation-1707