In the United States, standardized tests shape what, how, and why English Language Arts teachers teach. For the last generation, these tests have increasingly taken a narrowly text-centered approach to literature, making it difficult to enact or research alternatives. But what if it were otherwise? In the current study, we asked teachers to…

Since the passage of the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, inclusion of all students with disabilities in accountability systems has been mandatory. By 2001, school personnel began to understand that alternate assessment needed to focus on students' performance on state standards, and nearly all states had created…

Studied the relationship between classroom assessment and motivational goals in diverse class climates in two Israeli elementary schools those that mainly apply traditional assessment and two that mainly apply alternative assessment. Results for 261 sixth-grade students show distinct differences in student perceptions of assessment and perception…

Reports a survey of Arizona teachers and administrators on (1) the extent to which teachers believe that standardized achievement tests reflect the language arts curriculum; (2) student reactions to standardized tests across grade levels; and (3) perceptions of the fairness of such tests across ethnicities and socioeconomic areas. Finds that…

A descriptive study was conducted to examine the current assessment practices of teachers in Ohio. The specific aim of the study was to gain an understanding of the extent to which teachers use traditional versus alternative forms of assessment techniques in their classrooms. Participants were 625 teachers from kindergarten through grade 12. The…

This report describes a program for improving students' depth of understanding through the use of alternative assessment. The targeted population consisted of students at one elementary, one junior high, and two high schools in two growing middle class communities in northern Illinois. Lack of student understanding was documented through teacher…

A pilot study systematically collected classroom assessment data in reading and compared that data to the students' test scores on the Degrees of Reading Power (DRP). A total of 61 teachers in 18 New York City public elementary schools gathered the data for 268 students in grades 2 through 6. Teachers identified the books their children could…

Recently the electorate in some states in the United States has voted to eliminate the use of racial preferences in college admissions. However, many voters still favor fair and just means for promoting ethnic diversity in higher education. In light of these new conditions, researchers are interested in finding alternative measures of merit that…

Parental attitudes about standardized tests and performance assessments were studied through interviews with 60 parents or parent dyads in schools involved in a project to develop new assessments and through questionnaires completed by parents from control schools. Parent approval of standardized tests did not imply disapproval of performance…

Popular belief in alternative assessment procedures suggests that the use of student portfolios can help learners successfully organize and integrate newly acquired scientific knowledge. This two-group comparison study documents the use of student created portfolios in an algebra-based, college-level, introductory physics course. Sixteen students…

Parent opinions about standardized tests and performance assessments were examined systematically. Mutually exclusive but randomly equivalent stratified samples from schools participating in a study of performance assessment and control schools were used to measure change in parent opinion over time. Approximately one-third of parents (n=105)…

Few studies have investigated the knowledge and beliefs that undergrids science teachers' assessment practice. This study was conducted to investigate the perspectives of science teachers on classroom assessment, considering the constructs that inform teachers of their classroom assessment practice. The study was grounded in a socioconstructivist…

As part of a larger study of implementation of alternative assessment, a survey of parent opinions about standardized tests and performance assessments was conducted in three elementary schools. In the three participating schools, 3rd-grade teachers attended workshops on assessment development and implemented these practices in their classrooms.…

A study compared teachers' assessments of students based on alternative evaluation techniques to student assessments based on standardized tests. Teachers in seven kindergarten classrooms evaluated their students (approximately 130 each year) in each of 3 successive years according to how well they had mastered a set of criteria which the teachers…

An overview is provided of the "Authentic Assessment for Multiple Users" project funded by the National Science Foundation to determine whether portfolio assessment can be structured to permit meaningful aggregation for multiple hierarchical users. The research focus was in the context of science and mathematics instruction in grades…