Return-Path: <nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id i3JG7tm20577; Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:07:55 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:07:55 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <Sea2-F69V3LCTosnwO50005bee9@hotmail.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Eileen Eckert" <eileeneckert@hotmail.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:521] alternatives to standardized testing X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Status: O Content-Length: 4998 Lines: 79 We've been talking about assessment as it is increasingly directed toward standardized testing, or standardized conditions for performance assessment. To state the obvious, my opinion is that increasing use of standardized testing is not a good thing. One reason is that it is so often misused, and federal education policy <depends on> the misuse of standardized tests; for example, drawing conclusions about school-wide, or program-wide, effectiveness from a single instrument that is administered to everyone regardless of its appropriateness. Another reason is that expertise in standardized testing continues to be almost exclusively the purview of testing companies and academic researchers, and not widely shared among teachers and program administrators, so misuse of standardized tests is not likely to be addressed. David Rosen pointed out a better practice, that of conducting valid and reliable performance assessment. I agree with him that it is a better option than standardized testing, but I have two concerns about it. First, is valid and reliable performance assessment possible when you do not have a single set of clear learning outcomes that you are trying to assess, outcomes that the students themselves want to meet? The example David gave was in voc ed, where presumably everyone is there to learn the same things (maybe not exactly the same, but close). That is not the case in most adult basic education and ESL classes. People come with a variety of goals, and while you might categorize them so that there's some commonality, devising performance assessments that reflect how people will really use what they've learned is difficult. The other problem is that to make performance assessment valid and reliable, you standardize the conditions, and that means doing assessment separate from instruction and learning. One result is that <if> you can get the funding to create and use valid and reliable performance assessments, that does not address at all the need for funding for direct instruction of students. In fact it would probably make it worse, since an increase in funding for one area, like assessment, is usually accompanied by either no increase or real cuts in other areas, like instruction or student services (if student services ever existed as such, and have not already been cut). Higher education is also in the grips of assessment fever, but in higher ed it's "outcomes assessment." This trend has its problems too, but on the whole I think it's vastly better than the standardized testing trend. While K-12 and adult ed are subject to the valid and reliable criteria, higher ed doesn't seem to have very well-defined quality criteria, except maybe the multiple measures criteria. Still, some advantages of outcomes assessment are that it is focused and dependent on the expertise of teachers, it can be done in such a way that assessment and learning are greatly intertwined, and it <can> also use students' real work and real applications of what they've learned. In a course that I developed, and continue to team-teach, there are established outcomes, each of which has an assessment rubric and a self-evaluation to be completed weekly. Students are asked to evaluate themselves at one of three levels, provide the evidence (which they put into a portfolio binder), and write the actions they will take over the next week to make progress toward achieving the outcomes. They meet individually with the instructor 2 or 3 times during the 12-week course to review their progress and the contents of their portfolio. We're now in the third session of this course, and each time we learn more about how to improve instruction from the assessments, and the evidence included in the portfolios improves. It is not a perfect course or system, but it is such an improvement over standardized tests, and even over teacher-developed performance assessments. I was in Washington State from 1997-2001 and was first a member of the state ABE directors' group and then a member of the group working on the assessment system, so I saw how decisions were made and how educators worked to build a performance assessment system. I think the performance assessment system effort floundered on the need to construct valid and reliable assessments, and the near impossibility of doing so in a way that preserved the meaning, usefulness, and value of performance assessment, which came in great part from its responsiveness to individual needs. I think that in order to advocate for an assessment system that works, we need to know what works and what doesn't about the current system (and why), and be able to compare it with other possibilities and speak up--with students--for what they need. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Toolbar provides one-click access to Hotmail from any Web page – FREE download! http://toolbar.msn.com/go/onm00200413ave/direct/01/
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