Whitehead, David2009-11-242009-11-242008Whitehead, D. (2008). Testing like you teach: The challenge of constructing local, ecologically valid tests. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 7(3), 10-25.1175-8708https://hdl.handle.net/10289/3407In an educational context, local, ecologically valid tests can reflect the use of literacy and thinking tools. These tests present a challenge to central, content focused, high-stakes testing, and to transmission approaches to teaching. They require teachers to accept knowledge as a verb, and to design assessment protocols that reflect co-constructive ways of teaching. This article reports the outcome of praxis action research with middle and secondary school teachers who incorporated topic-appropriate literacy and thinking tools into their teaching. They also redesigned their local tests linked to high-stakes test protocols to reflect the use of these tools. A thematic analysis of observations and interviews suggests that this process impacted on the structural characteristics (morés) of the schools, and posed affective, cognitive and pedagogical challenges to teachers.application/pdfenThis article has been published in the journal: English Teaching: Practice and Critique. Used with permission.ecologically validtestsliteracyteachingJournal Article