Gardner's method assesses, for instance, a child's ability to interpret music or recognize a familiar face. Tailoring itself to a student's abilities, a CAT test evaluates reading, grammar, and math skills with fewer questions than traditional exams. Instead of taking a standardized test, for example, a student might be asked to write a newspaper article. Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg introduces the Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test. 1995 ETS and the US Air Force report on their collaboration to create HyDrive, a probability-based multimedia testing system that monitors students as they troubleshoot an aircraft hydraulic system.
Tests allow students to deduce the effectiveness of their work, decisions, and reasoning.
1998 Compass, an adaptive-testing program, is linked with Addison Wesley Longman textbooks to create individual study plans for students. Test results are used to recommend specific problems to solve or chapters to read. Basing scores on a training set of manually graded essays, e-rater focuses on syntax, vocabulary, and organization. Students deconstruct their own thought processes - considering, for example, whether their models of Newtonian force were developed through careful reasoning or through creative insight. 2010 Lockheed Martin suggests that schools could adapt military technology, like the Combined Arms Tactical Trainer, for classroom use.