Investigates the effect of mathematics portfolio assessments on middle school students' achievement. Discusses portfolio contents, students' attitudes toward the ability of portfolios to reflect their achievement and toward their active involvement in assessment, and the success of the evaluations. (JPB)

A study of 206 Kentucky special education teachers examined the amount of time required on alternative assessment. Results found teachers spend many hours outside of class time completing one portfolio. Instructional variables, such as the extent to which portfolio items are embedded into instruction, are strongly related to student scores.…

Focuses on the creation of children's books as a form of alternative assessment in the history classroom. Describes a project in which high school students developed children's books of historic persons. Incorporates three of Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences: linguistic, spatial, and personal. Provides the assignment, the grading rubric,…

Discusses three reasons explaining heightened interest in alternative assessment in the context of diversity issues in school psychology: inadequacy of traditional test use with language populations for whom tests were not designed; the hope that alternative assessment will eliminate, reduce, or camouflage average score differences between…

Presents observations of students' self-assessment capabilities. Describes the use of a new interactive question type that looks directly at self-assessment and its relationship to success on content questions. (DDR)

Believes that social studies teachers should help their students use logical argument and learn to recognize a fallacious argument. Offers a description and conceptualization of critical thinking. Discusses common fallacies of informal arguments after defining fallacy and syllogisms. Provides three considerations for classroom discourse and…

The effect of time-related mean differences on estimates of association in cross-sectional studies has not been widely recognized in developmental and aging research. Cross-sectional studies of samples varying in age have found moderate to high levels of shared age-related variance among diverse age-related measures. These findings may be…

Objectives: To develop valid and reliable alternate forms to measure college students' attitudes toward health. Methods: Final scale, composed of 2 different but equivalent 15-item forms, was administered to 2 sets of college students. The mixed format of 30 items was administered to one sample of college students whereas a pre-post format was…

People have unique ways of learning, which may greatly affect the learning process and, therefore, its outcome. In order to be effective, e-learning systems should be capable of adapting the content of courses to the individual characteristics of students. In this regard, some educational systems have proposed the use of questionnaires for…

A non-arbitrary method for the identification and scale setting of latent variables in general structural equation modeling is introduced. This particular technique provides identical model fit as traditional methods (e.g., the marker variable method), but it allows one to estimate the latent parameters in a nonarbitrary metric that reflects the…

Communication activities about food evaluation were incorporated into food preparation courses. Oral reports replaced quizzes and an oral presentation replaced the final exam. A rubric was developed to help students evaluate ingredient functions, procedures, techniques, temperatures, and sensory evaluation. Oral report scores, self-evaluations,…

Course evaluations are used by many institutions in promotion, tenure, and merit decisions. This article discusses the influences on those evaluations and how faculty can combat those biases to ensure accurate portrayal of their teaching effectiveness. Alternative evaluation methods are reviewed, including portfolios, peer feedback sessions, and…

The issue of student success is a common concern in the typical community college, and no less so at Santa Fe Community College (SFCC) in New Mexico. As a result of a comprehensive program review of student success rates in mathematics, the Mathematics Departments in the Divisions of Arts and Sciences and Developmental Studies collaborated on…

Portfolios have been used in a variety of ways for assessing student work. In education, generally, and more specifically in second language education, portfolios have been associated with alternative assessment (Darling-Hammond, 1994; Hamayan, 1995; Shohamy, 1996; Wolf, Bixby, Glenn, & Gardener, 1991). This article defines "alternative…

The relationships between ratings on the Idaho Alternate Assessment (IAA) for 116 students with significant disabilities and corresponding ratings for the same students on two norm-referenced teacher rating scales were examined to gain evidence about the validity of resulting IAA scores. To contextualize these findings, another group of 54…