Alternative Assessment

Abstract

This article presents information on alternative assessment methods used in the evaluation of student learning. Alternative assessment is a type of assessment that differs from standard assessment techniques and traditional modes of assessment. It seeks to make learning more significant and to provide a stronger link between instruction and assessment. Types of alternative assessment include authentic assessment, performance assessment, portfolio assessment, exhibitions, demonstrations and student self-assessment. The article also presents an extensive list of alternative-assessment measures that serve as options for implementation in the classroom.

Overview

Alternative assessment is a widely used term that denotes any and all alternatives to standard assessment techniques and traditional modes of assessment, which instead use non-standardized and nontraditional ways of assessment. Alternative assessment approaches are used to assess the knowledge and skills of students that are not well captured by traditional assessment methods. Alternative assessment is based on a philosophy and a goal that differ from those of traditional assessments. Alternative assessment is a practice that is often affiliated with educational reform, which is at its root a quest for alternatives (Donovan, Larson, Stechschulte, & Taft, 2002; McMillan, 2001; National Research Council, 2001; Settlage, 2004; Smith, Smith, & DeLisi, 2001).

Roots in Constructivism. Alternative assessment is supported by the philosophy of constructivism, which emphasizes the importance of students constructing and supplying responses rather than selecting or choosing them. Great interest in alternative assessment in the U.S. grew during the 1990s and its popularity has continued unabated into the present day. A primary purpose of alternative assessment is to promote learning--not only to verify learning. As such, alternative assessment is both formative and diagnostic. Alternative assessment places increased emphasis on the development and implementation of meaningfully contextualized instruction and assessment. Alternative assessment grading and scoring is more informative, because it includes the specific criteria used in the evaluations.

Alternative assessment tasks more closely resemble real-world learning tasks and they encompass both individual and group activities. They are open-ended tasks that require students to solve a problem, create a product, or to generally apply the knowledge and skills they have learned. Alternative assessments may include student work products, hands-on activities, observations, limited or extended written responses, drawings, diagrams, graphs, charts, lists, and webs (National Research Council, 2001; Weldin & Tumarkin, 1997).

Alternative assessment and constructivist philosophy recognize that effective education involves more than mastery of content; it also involves students' development of thinking and reasoning skills. The learning, knowledge, skills, and abilities demonstrated by students during alternative assessment is based on the use of specific criteria. The criteria and instructional objectives used to evaluate students' performances are made clear and explicit beforehand (McMillan, 2001; National Research Council, 2001).

Advantages over Traditional Assessment. Alternative assessment seeks to make learning more significant and to provide a stronger link between, and foster greater integration of, instruction and assessment, emphasizing ongoing classroom assessments that are an integral part of teaching practice. It generally involves assessment situations that enable the collection of more extensive evidence of student performance, as it is based on multiple measures taken over time to yield a more complete picture of student achievement. Alternative assessment provides more in-depth descriptive information about more complex activities occurring over longer periods of time than traditional assessment methods (McMillan, 2001; National Research Council, 2001; Weldin & Tumarkin, 1997).

McMillan (2001) identifies six major types or subtypes of alternative assessment:

• Authentic assessment
• Performance assessment
• Portfolio assessment
• Exhibitions
• Demonstrations
• Student self-assessment

Assessment Reform. Assessment reform has been on the educational agenda in the U.S. since the 1990s. A type of "mini-revolution" occurred in assessment during the 1990s, and alternative assessment, a relatively new form of assessment, was very popular. A lot of new names entered the assessment lexicon, including alternative assessment and its related types or subtypes:

• Authentic assessment
• Performance assessment
• Portfolio assessment

A plethora of new publications came out relating to this historic reconceptualization of assessment (Buhagiar, 2007; Herman, 1997; Smith et al., 2001).

Assessments have historically been used to differentiate and rank students by achievement. Due to standardized testing regulations, the nature of educational assessment has been changing. Nevertheless, alternative assessments are still being used. Research and development efforts to design better alternative assessment approaches for measuring individual students' knowledge and skills have been underway (McMillan, 2001; National Research Council, 2001; Stiggins, 2007). Buhagiar (2007), for example, wrote about one innovation, an alternative paradigm--"assessment for learning"--which he proposes as a means to embody all forms of assessment taking place within the confines of the classroom and to more fully integrate teaching, learning, and assessment.

Purpose. The type of assessment used in evaluating student achievement needs to be matched with its purpose. The assessment option that provides the best evidence should be the one that is implemented (McMillan, 2001). A primary purpose of alternative assessment is for actual learning, as opposed to the verification of learning. Alternative assessment provides formative assessment of student learning. It focuses on both students' finished work and their progress. Teachers are able to share information with students, provide descriptive feedback, and discuss goals so as to improve performance (Johnsen, 1996; Stiggins, 2007). Traditional assessments are not suitable for dynamic learning environments and may not provide reliable evidence for diagnostic purposes. Alternative assessment, however, provides direction for future work and instruction (Johnsen, 1996; Kalyuga, 2006).

Alternative assessment engages students actively in the learning process, enhances student learning, and improves instruction by providing ways of applying knowledge, thinking critically, solving complex problems, or creating a product. Alternative assessment makes it possible not only to sample all that has been learned in a specific area but also to address students' potential, motivation, and confidence (Haladyna, 1997; Johnsen, 1996; Stiggins, 2007). The general purposes of alternative assessment are to motivate students to do their best work, build students' self-confidence and self-concept, show improvement in students' work over time, and show students' best work in a specific area (Johnsen, 1996; Monson & Monson, 1993).

Contexts. Alternative assessment supports the development and implementation of contextualized instruction and assessment. Specific instructional and assessment contexts can be set up in complex interdisciplinary learning settings. Alternative assessment reflects assessment that is "authentic," a term coined by Wiggins (1993). Student performance needs to model realistic encounters in life.

All teaching, learning, and assessment should be done in contexts that are relevant and meaningful to the learner, so alternative assessment allows for a high degree of contextualization to the individual student. Tasks are "framed" in the context of an actual student project, involve application, and are connected to his or her personal educational experience (National Research Council, 2001; Tal, Dori, & Lazarowitz, 2000; Wiggins, 1993). The contexts of alternative assessment should be interesting to students, appropriate for the level, and readily available (Haladyna, 1997; Kumar & Bristor, 1999; Watt, 2005).

Applications

Alternative assessments are constructed response or supply-type measurements. With all types of alternative assessment, students must actually construct a response--not select or choose a response. Examples of constructed responses are giving a speech, carrying out a project, and completing short-answer items. Constructed response assessments are often referred to as "subjective" tests. However, although some constructed responses, like essays, are judged subjectively, others, such as sentence completion items with only a single correct answer, may be scored objectively (McMillan, 2001).

Assessment Types. There is much overlap of designation regarding the various types of alternative assessment. The types interrelate such that the same assessment type can be referred to in a variety of ways. For example, at least two types of alternative assessment--exhibitions and demonstrations--are also performance assessments. A project (an assessment measure or tool) can be part of a performance assessment, an authentic assessment, or a portfolio assessment (McMillan, 2001). Smith, Smith, and DeLisi (2001) argue that the term "performance assessment" seems to be winning out over the use of "alternative assessment" or "authentic assessment." Table 1 presents a detailed list of the descriptors, contexts, types, and measures of alternative assessment that will be discussed in this article.

Performance Assessment. Performance assessment involves the completion of a product that can be evaluated. A performance assessment might also be a demonstration of students' knowledge, skills, and abilities. It does not necessarily imply observing a student performance, but typically students actually create, develop, produce, or perform a task in response to a prompt in order to demonstrate a skill or proficiency (McMillan, 2001). In a performance assessment, "students have actually done whatever it is that you want them to be able to do" (Smith, Smith, & DeLisi, 2001, p. 46).

Authentic Assessment. Authentic assessment is centered around meaningful, individualized student activities. An authentic assessment is developed and constructed so that it is comparable to how individuals behave in real-world situations (McMillan, 2001; Smith, Smith, & DeLisi, 2001).

Portfolio Assessment. Portfolio assessment refers to the assessment of a collection of a student's work, in most cases his or her best work. A portfolio most often includes a series of products that have been designed to specifically assess certain abilities. Both the goals and the evidence that will be considered acceptable and appropriate for meeting them are developed and expressed clearly and explicitly early in the process. A portfolio documents the range of a student's activities and accomplishment, and it illustrates the student's performance and improvement over time (Collin, 1992; McMillan, 2001; Smith, Smith, & DeLisi, 2001).

Portfolios may include historical records of a student's work, student critiques, tests, records of activities, and artistic-performance products. Varieties of portfolios include open formats, showcases, and checklists (National Research Council, 2001; Slater, 1996; Smith, Smith, & DeLisi, 2001).

Exhibitions. Exhibitions allow students to demonstrate publicly what they have learned. Because they immerse students in the midst of their learning, exhibitions are an excellent way to measure learning. Exhibitions are interactive and motivate students to learn more. Students may report on a paper they have written, a book they have read, or a drawing or a painting they have made. Exhibitions are perhaps the best way to involve parents in assessment as well as in their children's education (Littky & Grabelle, 2004).

Demonstrations. As mentioned previously, both exhibitions and demonstrations are types of performance assessment (McMillan, 2001). Demonstrations are educational exemplifications, illustrations or explanations that usually, but not always, involve vocal expressions or brief presentations that display evidence of a student's learning, knowledge, skills, or abilities in a given area of study.

Student Self-Assessments & Peer Assessments

In self-assessments, students evaluate and reflect on their own work (National Research Council, 2001). With peer assessments, students evaluate the work of their peers and in turn have their own work evaluated by those same peers.

Graphic Organizers. Graphic organizers, such as concept maps, can also be used as an alternative assessment of classroom learning. Evaluation of concept-mapping tasks can help to diagnose students' misconceptions. Concept maps balance objectivity with sensitivity to the structures of students' knowledge (McClure, Sonak, & Suen, 1999).

Assessment Measures. Assessment measures, or measurement instruments, are specific methods and techniques used by teachers and students to implement the various types of alternative assessment. The numerous assessment approaches and strategies that serve as options for implementation in the classroom are also listed in Table 1.

Alternative assessment measures include open-ended exercises, extended-response exercises, and extended tasks, such as:

• Practical project work
• Artwork progress
• Journals and journal writing
• Logs
• Questionnaires
• Surveys
• Rubrics
• Student self-assessments
• Work sample tests
• Identification tests
• Student-involved assignments
• Student and teacher reflections on the learning process

Oral assessments include prepared presentations and performances, interviews, oral examinations, and student debriefings. Observation measures and methods include observations of students solving problems in groups or on extended projects, inventories, rating scales, teacher or peer ratings, photographs, audio/video recordings, checklists, and anecdotal records. More simplistic alternative performance assessments might include completing a project, giving a speech, writing a letter to the editor, painting a picture, or constructing a model. An essay in which a student's pet acts heroically or a story based on a student's interview with his or her grandparents are common everyday examples as well (Bullens, 2002; Donovan et al., 2002; Glowacki & Steele, 1992; McMillan, 2001; National Research Council, 2001; Smith, Smith, & DeLisi, 2001).

Grading & Scoring. Traditional assessments assign letter grades that are based conventional teacher observations and evaluations (Corcoran, Dershimer, & Tichenor, 2004; Craig & McCormick, 2002). Although most students like being graded with authentic, alternative assessment methods, grades are still considered by students as the most important part of assessment.

Alternative assessment grading and scoring are more informative because they include the specific criteria used in the evaluations. The use of rubrics and other alternative assessment measurement instruments for rating students' performance can improve critical thinking. Portfolios and criteria-based report cards can replace traditional letter grades for students. Other alternative methods of grading and scoring include contracting, mastery, multiple grades, and the point system. Student self-comparisons, self-grading, and self-reflections can be used to obtain students' perceptions of their own work (Alff & Kearns, 1992; Bullens, 2002; Schamber & Mahoney, 2006; Scott, 1992).

Viewpoints

Advantages. Alternative assessment has many advantages and strengths, and it provides innumerable benefits and opportunities to students. It bears a closer and more authentic relationship to the evaluation of real-world tasks, providing more genuine accountability to student evaluations. Ideally, it results in increased collaboration and engages students and teachers in active roles. Teachers can serve as facilitators and coaches, and the involvement of students and parents is expanded (Donovan et al., 2002). Teachers can observe students' actual performances or "high-fidelity simulations of actual performance" (Simon & Gregg, 1993). They can derive information directly from interactions and observations with students and the learning activities and tasks they are involved in.

Alternative methods of assessment are flexible. They are able to sample a wider range of students' performances over time and effectively assess the full spectrum of students' abilities. They also provide more comprehensive and more complete ways of describing student achievement. Alternative methods are not only able to capture students' growth but also the complexity and creativity of their work. They can measure more complex products and show more detail and depth in students' products and performances. Using alternative assessment methods in combination with one another--for example, mixing portfolios and performance-based approaches--constitutes a rigorous and complete picture of student learning (Johnsen, 1996; Donovan et al., 2002; Monson & Monson, 1993; Watt, 2005). The variety of approaches to content provides an increased depth of understanding and accentuates the communication of ideas. Alternative assessment uses explicit strategies for teaching reasoning and problem-solving, and it promotes higher-order and critical thinking processes throughout the curriculum (Hoskyn, 1994; Simon & Gregg, 1993).

Some other proven benefits of alternative assessment techniques are:

• A change from traditional teacher-centered instructional strategies to a more learner-centered approach. Alternative assessment practices are compatible with project-oriented learning in which students construct answers, perform tasks, and create products (Allison & Rehm, 2007; Donovan et al., 2002; Gerber et al., 2003; Hoskyn, 1994; Rural School and Community Trust, 2001; Waters, Smeaton, & Burns, 2004).
• Improved accountability of students' prior knowledge. Alternative assessment has a greater power than traditional assessments to show students' growth over time, and students are able to observe and document their own personal growth (Johnsen, 1996; Uram, 1993).
• Greater attention to not only the cognitive but also the non-cognitive domains of learning. Alternative assessment is better attuned to students' affective domain growth and development, aspects of the curriculum that are often neglected in traditional assessments. It can focus on students' feelings and dispositions and can improve students' social skills.
• Accommodation of the diverse learning styles and cultural backgrounds students may bring to the classroom. Alternative assessment utilizes strategies that are effective and beneficial for culturally and linguistically diverse students. Conversely, the use of alternative assessment also shows that there are insignificant differences in the performances of minority and non-minority students. There is no so-called "performance gap" to lower (Allison & Rehm, 2007; Hoskyn, 1994).
• A stronger emphasis on the learning process than standardized tests, which tend to focus only on answers. Traditional assessment methods cause students test anxiety, do not involve students in the development of criteria, do not include student self-evaluation, and use a grading system that does not truly reflect student knowledge of subject matter (Bullens, 2002; Craig & McCormick, 2002; Donovan et al., 2002; Lin, 2002; Keith, 1996; Meadows and Karr-Kidwell, 2001; Neisworth & Bagnato, 2004).

Disadvantages. Among the disadvantages cited in the educational literature for alternative assessment are:

• An inclusion of only "touchy, feely"-type activities.
• A narrow domain of assessment.
• A lack of uniform standards and clearly stated objectives.
• A stronger reliance on subjective judgments than traditional assessments (Glowacki & Steele, 1992; Johnsen, 1996; Simon & Gregg, 1993; Watt, 2005).

Alternative assessment approaches can be expensive and may require extra time. Detractors have indicated that alternative assessment uses too much of teachers' time and that it involves major investments in planning time, working classroom time, and grading time.

Problems and challenges raised by teachers also include designing goals, the validity of assessments, grading and fairness using rubrics, and grading and student motivation (Craig & McCormick, 2002; Glowacki & Steele, 1992; Graham, 2005; Simon & Gregg, 1993).

Alternative Assessment in U.S. Classrooms. Maddahian (2004) found evidence of the use of alternative learning styles and modalities, including students' prior knowledge and experience, in less than half of the classrooms studied. About 10 percent of elementary school observations provided evidence of alternative assessment methods while half of elementary school observations provided evidence of traditional assessment strategies. Alternative assessment approaches were found in less than one-fifth of secondary classroom observations (Maddahian, 2004).

A survey of approximately 500 primary grade teachers in 73 elementary schools found that the factors contributing most to teachers' knowledge of, and practices used in, alternative assessment included small class size, sufficient planning time, district-sponsored training, implementation, collaboration, and reflection (Culbertson & Wenfan, 2003). The same study showed that teachers' practices in alternative assessment increased based on increased administrative support, sufficient resources, scholarly reading, and the professional freedom to choose assessment techniques.

The majority of teacher candidates consider alternative assessment valuable evidence of student learning (Graham, 2005). Most secondary students in another research study preferred a differentiated, alternative assessment model to the use of only traditional assessments (Waters et al., 2004).

Although it is clear that alternative assessment is preferable over traditional assessment, it has not been universally implemented in America's classrooms.

Terms & Concepts

Alternative Assessment: A type of assessment that is based on constructivist research and provides a stronger link between instruction and assessment.

Authentic Assessment: A meaningful and individualized form of assessment that is consistent with what people do in real-world situations occurring naturally outside the classroom (McMillan, 2001).

Constructed Response: A category of assessments in which students must construct and supply a response rather than select or choose a response as in multiple choice tests. Alternative assessment types are completely constructed response (McMillan, 2001).

Constructivism: An educational philosophy that supports the use of alternative assessment, emphasizes the importance of students constructing responses in relation to their existing knowledge structures, and recognizes that effective education not only develops mastery of content but also students' thinking and reasoning skills (McMillan, 2001).

Contextualized Assessment: An assessment that is performed in contexts that are realistic, relevant, meaningful, and useful to individual students.

Diagnostic Assessment: A type of assessment that is used to provide direction for future work and instruction.

Exhibitions: Types of alternative assessment that involve interactive, public demonstrations of what students have learned.

Formative Assessment: A type of assessment that is designed, developed, and used to promote growth and improvement in students' performance; contrasted with summative assessment that is designed, developed, and used to make conclusions about the merit or worth of students' performance (Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, 2003).

Performance Assessment: A type of alternative assessment in which students create, develop, produce, or do something in response to a prompt in order to demonstrate a skill or proficiency; it may involve a completed product or a student performance.

Portfolio Assessment: A type of alternative assessment in which students develop and present portfolios of their work to document a range of activities and accomplishments and to illustrate their performance and improvement over time; the evidentiary criteria considered appropriate and acceptable for the attainment of goals are developed and expressed clearly and explicitly early in the process.

Student Self-Assessment: An alternative assessment in which students evaluate and reflect on their own work.

Traditional Assessment: A class or major type of assessment that includes those developed to measure traits with paper-and-pencil or electronic tests, including selected-response multiple-choice tests (McMillan, 2001).

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Suggested Reading

Buhagiar, M. A. (2007). Classroom assessment within the alternative assessment paradigm: Revisiting the territory. Curriculum Journal, 18, 39–56. Retrieved August 17, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=24953025&site=ehost-live

Johnsen, S. (1996). What are alternative assessments? Gifted Child Today, 19, 12–14. Retrieved August 17, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=9609036313&site=ehost-live

Lin, Q. (2002). Beyond standardization: Testing and assessment in standards-based reform. Action in Teacher Education, 23, 43–49.

Metin, M. (2012). Investigation of primary students' opinions about using performance assessment in science and technology course with respect to the different variables. Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning & Teaching, 13, 1–25. Retrieved December 13, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http:// search.ebscohost.com/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=85862758&site=ehost-live

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