Others suggest that redesigning evaluation procedures or revised methods of scoring could help. All have been tried, some have helped, and most have failed. What is soon discovered is that all these solutions applied to a fundamentally and inherently defective test will not bring about a positive result. (Bernhard) the thought that all members of every population will look at the world in the same way is false.

The notion of cultural validity in assessment addresses the fact that society and culture may influence the way in which individuals interpret test items and respond to them. A test cannot be considered as culturally valid if these sociocultural influences are not taken into account throughout the entire process of its development. (Solano-Flores)

We have discovered that most experts agree it is difficult, if not impossible, to compose a test that is free of cultural bias. And one of the primary problems we have not mentioned is that, in attempting to free an examination of its culture bias towards a particular culture, it is often inherent that we would create a bias towards another of the constituent cultures. Particularly in these diverse United States, and with standard achievement tests administered to broad bases of highly diverse cultures, the task becomes almost impossible.

However, attempts have been made to produce some suggestions to construct tests that show a minimal amount of bias. Though far from a total solution, the following at least offer points of discussion as we approach this difficult and complex issue:

1. Avoid ethnocentrism, indicating any particular group is superior and the standard against which all others are measured.

2. Avoid requiring construct-irrelevant knowledge or skill in order to answer a test...

(unnecessarily difficult words, figures of speech, or idioms; vocabulary based on social class or financial knowledge; slang, etc.)
3. Avoid stereotypes (generalizing and oversimplifying)

4. Represent diversity in depictions of people (parity of status)

5. Use appropriate terminology to refer to people (use of unnecessarylabels)

Bibliography

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Bernhard, Judith. "Cultural Bias in Standard Tests of Mental Abilities." n.d. Ryerson

Polytechnical Institute. 23 January 2009 http://www.ryerson.ca/~bernhard/documents/culturalbias_000.pdf.

Education Alliance at Brown University. "Teaching Diverse Learners." 2006. The Education Alliance, Brown University. 23 January 2009 http://www.alliance.brown.edu/tdl/assessment/stndrdassess-prt.shtml.

Laturnau, Joseph. "Cultural Bias in Standardized Tests." n.d. Pac. Ed.. 23 January 2009 http://www.prel.org/products/paced/aug02/pc_tests.htm.

RamMohan, Yasmin Tara. "Advocates say standardized tests often flunk cultural bias scrutiny." 09 May 2007. Medill Reports. 23 January 2009 http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=35935.

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Solano-Flores, Guillermo. "Cultural Validity in Assessment." Summer 2000. News From the Project. 23 January 2009 http://www.edgateway.net/cs/cvap/print/docs/cvap/news.htm.

Wiesen, Joel. "Content-Oriented Cultural Bias Review of Test Questions." 24th Annual

IPMAAC Conference Handout. Arlington, VA, 2000.