|
|
|
|
A researcher is interested in testing the effectiveness of a classroom assessment practice being advocated in recent journal articles and texts. The practice involves giving several examples of “exceptional” and “poor” work to students, asking them to discuss the differences in these examples, and from these discussions establish the essential domains defining the quality of the work as well as the specific criteria by which each domain should be assessed. The practice is based on a model of classroom assessment that suggests an interactive relationship between instruction and assessment and the active involvement of students in the assessment process. That is, assessment is integrated into the instructional strategies so that it is very difficult to differentiate the two, and the students play an important role in developing the actual assessments that are used. This model is quite different from a teacher-directed, linear assessment model in which instruction and assessment are considered separate tasks that the teacher controls completely. In this model, assessment, or “measurement” as it is typically called, happens only subsequently to instruction. The researcher created three groups of students who were randomly assigned to one of three secondary English classes. All of the participants were given the same short story to read and asked to complete a project based on their reading. This project was the vehicle within which the assessment models were operationalized. Three strategies were used, each reflecting different assessment models. The first and second were the two models described previously, and the third incorporated the use of domains established by the teacher and criteria for each of these domains established by the students. Thus, the third model reflected both teacher-directed and student-directed assessment dimensions. Data was collected on a test of the students’ comprehension and literary appreciation of the short story. Test scores could range from 1 to 100. 
|