This volume reports on innovative, useful evaluation work conducted within U.S. college foreign language programs. An introductory chapter scopes out the territory, reporting key findings from research into the concerns, impetuses, and uses for evaluation that FL educators identify. Seven chapters then highlight examples of evaluations conducted…

Discusses the need to pay more attention to the type and nature of the content assessed. Provides five guidelines designed to help teachers select material that will contain important content, the heart of authentic assessment. (MG)

Provides a rationale for why literacy assessment is in need of improvement. Presents guidelines for improving literacy assessment. Describes a model for implementing changes in literacy assessment. (MG)

Provides a checklist which can be used to help students become more independent learners by guiding them through a self-assessment of their abilities to learn how to learn and to establish clear goals with corresponding strategies for improvement. Provides educators with current references relating to such assessment procedures. (MG)

Provides information useful to educators who are rethinking their current approach to assessment and identifies characteristics of each assessment that seem particularly noteworthy. Concludes by raising a number of questions that should be considered before deciding whether or not to use these new performance-based assessments. (MG)

Discusses several data collection procedures involved in four manageable writing classroom evaluation measures. (MG)

Describes one assessment instrument, the Classification Scheme for Emergent Reading of Favorite Storybooks, that has evolved into a tool for helping teachers understand development. Notes that the instrument can be used day to day to track the development of individuals or groups of children over time. (MG)

The importance and problems of evaluating the final-year projects of students in electrical and electronics engineering education are discussed, and guidelines for achieving uniformity in assessment are given. The approaches used in two African universities are also described. (Author/MSE)

Describes a matrix that can illustrate the educational relationship between a course's learning activities and learning objectives. Discusses the development of the matrix in the context of a first-year engineering design course, and gives alternative applications of the matrix, such as using it in course articulation and using it as part of the…

Describes a process for developing alternative assessment instruments and student responses and illustrates the use of scoring rubrics. Focus is on the student's thought processes and student performance. (AIM)

Addresses problems associated with biology fieldwork and the teaching of ecology. Points out the need for the development of an objective approach in evaluating the effectiveness of fieldwork exercises. Reports on the evaluation of concept education by transect exercises. (ML)

Addresses the problems and methods of assessing individual performance within a group project. A peer evaluation technique by Culp and Malone was implemented in which group members were asked to identify the percent contribution they and other group members made to categories such as creativity, research, writing, and organizing. Ratings were then…

In the first stage of a project to improve the general education offerings at Wayne State University (Michigan), the ad hoc committee on general education defined those basic academic skills that a general education program should promote. The process of defining and evaluating the basic skill of communication typified the process of defining and…

Examines the traditional role assessment has played in college placement, reasons why traditional instruments have been criticized, and alternative affective and cognitive measurements. (MG)

Discusses the portfolio approach as a way of demonstrating communication competence in graduating students. Describes using class assignments as portfolio items, a study concerning the approach, and guidelines for portfolio assignments. (EL)