A capsule view of the rationales underlying ECD was provided by
Mislevy, Almond, and Lukas (2003):
ECD is based on three premises: (1) an assessment must build
around the important knowledge in the domain of interest and an
understanding of how that knowledge is acquired and put to use;
(2) the chain of reasoning from what participants say and do in
assessments to inferences about what they know, can do, or
should do next, must be based on the principles of evidentiary
reasoning; (3) purpose must be the driving force behind design
decisions, which reflect constraints, resources, and conditions of
use (p. 20).