RJ Interview (RJI)

Reasoning About Current Issues Test (RCI)

Assessing Reflective Judgment: General Description of Cognitive-Developmental Assessment

What is the purpose of cognitive-developmental assessment? There are three major assumptions of the cognitive-developmental perspective: the meaning of experiences is cognitively constructed, cognitive structures evolve, and development occurs in interaction with the environment (King, 1990, 2009).

"Cognitive developmental theories attempt to describe changes in the underlying thought processes people use to understand their experiences. These processes are not assumed to be either stable traits or skills that simply can be taught. Rather, these processes are at the core of individuals' cognitive functioning and ways of actively constructing meaning in their lives. These constructions develop over time and in response to challenging learning opportunities; less adequate constructions are gradually abandoned and are replaced by more adequate structures. Identifying where individuals are in the process of moving from the immature, simpler, and less adequate structures to the more mature, inclusive, and more adequate structures is the primary task of cognitive-developmental assessment" (King, 1990, p. 85).
Production and Recognition Tasks
There are two major types of instruments used to measure cognitive development. These are production tasks and recognition tasks.

In a production task, "the individual is required spontaneously to produce a response based on his or her repertoire of skills and cognitive competencies" (King, 1990, p. 89). The main advantage of production tasks "is that they yield rich and complex information about the subject's reasoning capacities, including ways a task is approached, what solutions are tested, whether and why alternative solutions are rejected, and so forth" (King, 1990, p. 89-90). Examples of production-task instruments include structured interviews and essay questions.

In recognition tasks, individuals are "presented with a series of response options rather than being asked to generate responses spontaneously at the time of testing" (King, 1990, p. 93). Recognition tasks have three primary advantages: they allow the researcher to focus respondents' attention on the specific areas of interest, they are not as difficult as production tasks, and they are less expensive and easier to administer and score.

For what purposes are developmental assessments used? Cognitive-development assessments measuring students' growth and educational achievements may be used for a variety of purposes in higher education. These include:

• Helping students understand themselves in developmental terms
• Providing baseline data from which to initiate or change programs
• Identifying what types of experiences are associated with development
• Selecting the design and delivery of developmentally appropriate services, classes, and programs(King, 1990, p. 95)