"The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social
decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption
pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the
social processes it is intended to monitor." The social science
principle of Campbell's law is sometimes used to point out the
negative consequences of high-stakes testing in U.S. classrooms.
What Campbell also states in this principle is that "achievement
tests may well be valuable indicators of general school
achievement under conditions of normal teaching aimed at general
competence. But when test scores become the goal of the teaching
process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational
status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways.
(Similar biases of course surround the use of objective tests in
courses or as entrance examinations.)" Campbell's law was
published in 1976 by Donald T. Campbell, an experimental social
science researcher and the author of many works on research
methodology. Close