Some tests may not be sensitive to actual student progress. There is a short discussion about portfolios and their use in the evaluation of bilingual education programs. A Practical Guide to Alternative Assessment. This book opens with an overview of shifts in conceptions about the role of assessment. Separate chapters provide guidance for determining assessment purposes, selecting assessment tasks, setting criteria, ensuring reliable scoring, and using alternative assessment for decision-making.
Chapters present useful tools such as checklists and charts.
The authors point out that the education community needs to adopt a more critical attitude toward assessment and its effects on teaching and learning. Alternatives to standardized testing are explored with the caveat that the unreliability and lengthiness of individual teacher and committee evaluations in the past led to standardized tests and multiple-choice items as solutions. The authors see some promise in the use of computer technology and the applications of findings from cognitive science for the creation of better means for assessing students' skills. The overall point, however, is that the education system should not be in search of any single instrument. Standardized tests are currently being used for too many purposes.