Alternatives in assessment

Retrieved from: senbooks.co.uk AssLearn.jpg

There is growing recognition that true/ false, multiple choice, and short answer tests do not give a correct picture of what students know and have accomplished. These are primarily measures of memorization and recall and do not always even test comprehension. They certainly do not give students opportunities to demonstrate that they can apply what they have learned or use their knowledge in creative or even just practical ways. Many teachers have long used their own tests involving such hands-on measures as the arts, constructions, dramatizations, and multimedia reports. [1] Brown and Hudson (1998) noted that to speak of alternative assessments is counterproductive because the term implies something new and different that may be "exempt from the requirements of responsible test construction" (p. 657). So they proposed to refer to "alternatives" in assessment instead. Their word is a perfect fit within a model that considers tests as a subset of assessment.

retrieved from: www.itslearning.net
wheel-en.png

Tests are highly practical and reliable instruments. They are designed to decrease time and money on the part of test-designer and test-taker, and to be precise in their scoring. Alternatives such as portfolios or conferencing with students on drafts of written work, or observations of learners over time all require considerable time and effort on the part of the teacher and the student. On the other hand, the alternative techniques also offer considerably greater wash back, are higher formative measures, and, because of their authenticity, usually carry higher face validity. [2]

The features of alternatives in assessment:

1. They require students to perform, create, produce or do something.
2. They use real-world context or simulations.  
3. They allow students to be assessed on what they usually do in class 
4. They application tasks that represent meaningful instructional activities 
5. They focus on processes as well as products
6. They tap into higher-level thinking and problem solving skills

Retrieved from: theglobalstudio.eu xAFL2008.png

Early in the decade of the 1990s, in a culture of rebellion against the notion that all people and all skills could be measured by traditional tests, that idea was to assemble additional measures of students—portfolios, journals, observations, self-assessments, peer-assessments, and the like—in an attempt to triangulate data about students.

---

[1] School of Education at Johns Hopkins University-Assessment ... (n.d.). Retrieved from http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Assessment%20Alternati

ves/index.html

[2] Brown, J.D. and Hudson, T. (1998). The alternatives in language assessment. TESOL Quarterly 32, 653–75.