In this slim volume, Lynch offers a unique contribution of interest for language educators and of particular utility for students who are new to the domain. By integrating the treatment of assessment and evaluation and by exploring issues in design, development, analysis, and ethics, the volume effectively introduces readers to key concerns in these oft-confounded processes. Additionally, although SLA is not addressed directly, SLA researchers might take interest in Lynch's treatment of paradigms and their role in applied work.

The first two chapters present a rationale for designing assessments and evaluations, beginning with the clarification of audiences, goals, social context, and focal themes. Based on the outcomes, Lynch argues, an explicit choice must then be made between interpretivist and positivist paradigms in order to meet the evidentiary and ethical demands implied. Paradigm, in turn, dictates methods: “It is the overall assessment design, flowing from the choice of paradigm, that differentiates a positivist assessment measure from an interpretivist assessment procedure” (p. 120). Although carefully articulated, the insistence on this distinction is decidedly narrow and reminiscent of the paradigm wars. For one, there is no attention to other relevant paradigms (e.g., pragmatism; Patton, 1997). There is also a singular focus on assessment/evaluation for the purpose of generating knowledge, although contemporary evaluators acknowledge at least three additional purposes: accountability, development, and advocacy. How the focus on paradigms will help educators deal with the realities of assessment/evaluation practice in response to such diverse purposes is largely unaddressed.

Chapters 3 and 4 address positivist approaches to assessment/evaluation, with a focus on measurement (i.e., quantifiable language tests, surveys, and the like). Chapter 3 provides an accessible introduction to test specifications as a means for organizing measurement development, followed by concerns in testing the four skills (emphasis on writing and speaking), testing integrated skills (minimal attention here), and quantifying surveys and observations. Chapter 4 describes techniques for analyzing items, making sense of survey and observation data, and using data to make decisions. Although clearly written, the treatment is introductory, and readers should explore additional sources (e.g., Bachman, 2004; Brown, 2005) for in-depth explanations of these and other quantitative measurement techniques.

Chapters 5 and 6 turn to interpretivist assessment/evaluation; at only 29 pages, there is an unfortunate imbalance with the positivist chapters (77 pages). Although Lynch is correct in calling interpretivist approaches the “new kid on the block” (p. 132), that might have been motivation for more depth, rather than less. Chapter 5 introduces portfolios, performance tasks, and the like as interpretivist assessments; then it focuses on observation and interviewing for evaluation. Underemphasized here is the range of qualitative methods available to evaluators, including document content analysis, focus group activities, and simulations and role-plays (Shaw, 1999). Chapter 6 outlines the steps taken in traditional qualitative data analysis. Unclear is the extent to which these exhaustive research procedures—from coding to classifying to interpreting—are intended to inform all interpretivist assessments/evaluations. For example, if classroom-based assessments are a principal interpretivist application, to what extent does a full-blown qualitative analysis meet the immediate needs of a teacher?

Chapter 7 concludes by considering validity issues from the two paradigmatic perspectives; most interesting here is the discussion of power, ethics, and critical testing. With this conclusion, on balance, I think the volume works as an introduction to prominent concerns and procedures in language assessment and program evaluation. More importantly, Lynch challenges readers to take issue with the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of traditional as well as innovative approaches. By bringing these dimensions to the fore—along with ethical and power-laden implications for practice—this volume offers an effective point of embarkation. It forces us to deal with the complex yet undeniable interrelationships among the philosophical, technical, and sociopolitical aspects of our work.

However, the volume is only a starting point, most directly relevant for generating dialogue. In my opinion, it paints an inaccurate dichotomous picture, a strategy that is particularly incompatible with contemporary program evaluation practice, where there is much more pragmatic middle ground sought and much less paradigm war being waged (Cook, 1997; Patton, 1997). Paradigms aside, it is also procedurally incomplete, with no systematic means for articulating the intended uses for assessments and evaluations with the array of available methods (see Norris, 2004). Without a doubt, the paradigm-first approach requires us to rethink the relationship between the methods we choose and the meanings they can and cannot support; whether paradigmatic orthodoxy will lead to useful and ethical language assessment and evaluation remains to be seen.