Author: Castiglione, Lawrence V.

Publication Year:

Media Type: Periodical (article)

Summary:

Abstract:

Performance-based assessment methods are now used in education more widely than at any time since the multiple-choice test format was introduced in about 1914. Standardized, single-session paper and pencil testing has often been criticized as a tool in policy creation and assessment. As a result, alternatives to familiar examinations that yield the relative standing of individuals (i.e. norm-referenced tests) are rapidly moving from the research literature to practical applications in high-stakes measurement situations. The Goals 2000: Educate America Act (1994) emphasized standards that apply to curricular content, student performance, and a student's opportunity to learn. That emphasis reflects the perspective of the U.S. education reform movement, which has advocated performance-based assessment as a preferred means of assessing students' proficiency. At least forty states are now either exploring alternative testing procedures or are in the process of changing assessments of student and/or professional performance. Performance-based assesment techniques include interactive computer-based simulations, simulations employing role playing, oral examinations, observations of sample performances in situ, and, the focus of this article portfolio assessment. (p. 2)

CONTENTS
Portfolios: see who I am and what I can do.
Applications to education in and out of the arts.
Different means produce different ends.
Validity, reliability, and utility of portfolio assessment.
Educational realpolitik: assumptions and ambivalence.
There is hope amid ambivalence.
Notes [include bibliographic references].

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Arts Education