Alternate Forms of Assessment

Paper Summary:

This paper explores alternate forms of educational assessment, which have taken on new importance since the "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) law requiring demonstrated proof of learning. While the standard assessment for most schools is some form of group achievement test, the paper explains that some students do not perform well on such tests, making them a poor yardstick for measuring their progress. The paper also says that tests are problematic for students with special needs, whose progress can not be assessed in the same way as children without impediments to learning. The paper then studies alternative forms of assessment, focusing in particular on the portfolio method, which is a broad collection of information that demonstrates as completely as possible how the student is performing as a learner. The paper reviews and summarizes several different quantitative research studies about this method.

From the Paper:

"The third article looked at ways to evaluate academic gains in alternative ways, particularly by the use of "running records." Olsen (1999) notes that "Students who will participate in alternate assessments typically are not working toward a regular high school diploma ... ". This statement might be of great concern, since students with dyslexia who have had great difficulty reading have been able, with the right supports, to complete a high school diploma and even college. The idea that only very severe disabilities interfere with good performance on group achievements may not be an accurate one. However, Olsen looked at a variety of assessment approaches including recollection, record review, and testing. He defined recollection as something that could be performed with an interview or using some kind of rating scale. These observations would of course be made by someone very familiar with the student within the school setting. Record review could include information from school cumulative records, databases, accumulated examples of work, anecdotal reports and records from non-school settings. The author noted that without some kind of standardization for gathering this information, it would be hard to quantify the information gathered in any systematic way. The author also noted that testing, whether standardized or norm-references, often did not demonstrate the abilities and knowledge of students with significant learning problems."

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