The authors describe a collaborative group-testing strategy implemented and studied in undergraduate science classes. This project investigated how the assessment strategy relates to student performance and perceptions about collaboration and focused on two sections of an undergraduate biotechnology course taught in separate semesters.

Direct measures (tests) of the pedagogical effectiveness of team testing and indirect measures (student surveys) of pedagogical effectiveness of team testing were collected in several sections of an undergraduate marketing course with varying levels of the use of team testing. The results indicate that although students perceived team testing to…

Group exams in science courses can enhance students' achievement and encourage retention of students within the discipline. The challenge to instructors is to recognize when and how they are best used.

Cooperative learning is a teaching technique that many teachers of all levels use in their classrooms. Putting students in structured groups so that they may work together has become a popular teaching strategy. Cooperative learning is student-centered teaching that requires the teacher to be facilitator and where students learn from each other.…

This paper looks at using collective critical thinking about issues as an assessment technique instead of or in addition to written tests. A substantial literature review examines the role of assessment and alternative strategies such as group oral exams in classes where cooperative activities and learning have been emphasized. The review reveals…

Describes the California Assessment Program's (CAP) group performance assessment task. Provides a sample task field test in world history, including written and culminating exercises. Suggests that such assessment exercises are popular with students and provide the teacher with an amalgam of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. (DK)

When one instructor began to use cooperative learning groups as a main teaching strategy in teacher education courses, she designed a large group oral exam format to take the place of traditional paper-and-pencil testing. The group oral exam format reduced text anxiety as there was no right or wrong response; it drew on both the cognitive and…

In introductory psychology courses, the desire to cover content can conflict with the desire to acquaint students with psychological thinking processes. The IDEAL method is a group problem solving quiz technique which addresses both of these goals. In the process, instructors choose key concepts from a given reading and divide the class into…