The Effectiveness and Use of Digital Portfolios for the Assessment of Art Performances in Selected Secondary Schools.

The submission of secondary student artwork for adjudication in both actual and in slide form has been an accepted practice by most universities and schools of art and in programs such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) and Advanced Placement Program in Studio Art (AP) (Boughton, 2004). Art institutions in higher education that require portfolios for admission may view student portfolios of actual artwork at selected high schools or at the college itself on portfolio days. They also accept admission portfolios in both slide and digital formats. According to The College Entrance Examination Board, however, the Advanced Placement Program in Studio Art requires applicants to submit at least four actual works of art and a variety of other works in slide form only (Davis, 2003). Due to the growing number of portfolio submissions for these purposes and to increased use of digital technology to duplicate actual works of art in the art classroom, we can soon expect major changes in the ways art students will submit portfolios for adjudication.The Digital Revolution and Consequential Problems Created in Art EducationNearly everyone who is acquainted with current developments in art education is familiar with what is referred to as the "digital" revolution. Digital technology has radically affected art programs in our schools and institutions of higher education. It is widely used by students as a medium to create works of art and by teachers as a tool to assist in curriculum development, instruction, and assessment (Boughton, 2004; Dorn, Madeja, & Sabol, 2004).The impact of digital technology in the general field of education has created a number of significant problems with which art educators must deal. Often art programs at all instructional levels do not have sufficient access to hardware and software to significantly contribute to the programs (Sabol, 2005). Some art educators struggle to gain funding needed to maintain existing digital technology and to acquire newer versions of it (Sabol, 2005).Change in the digital technology field is so rapid that art educators are challenged to keep abreast of changes and to incorporate them into their programs. Accompanying these changes is the growing need for professional development for art teachers in the area of digital technology. Art teachers frequently report that their students know more about current digital technology than they do (Dorn, Madeja, & Sabol, 2004).At the secondary level, art teachers and art students are faced with another range of digital technology related problems. Over the past decade there has been a significant decline in the use of slides and other traditional photographic media to reproduce students' works of art. In a growing number of exhibitions, scholarship competitions, and college admission protocols, students are being asked to submit their work and other evidence of academic achievement in digital form (Dorn, Madeja, & Sabol, 2004). Problems arise when works of art are submitted on various media such as floppy disks, CDs, and zip disks or on Mac or pc formats. Frequently, submitted materials cannot be easily or successfully viewed and evaluated by those requesting them because of incompatibilities among software, formatting, hardware, and other technological barriers. As a result, decisions based on digital submissions may be significantly delayed or prevented. Complicating these problems further is the range of variety among hardware and software programs students use to create digital materials. Such differences often lead to varying degrees of quality among digital reproductions of actual works of art being submitted. Consequently, digital reproductions of artworks may not accurately reproduce levels of excellence or subtle characteristics the actual works contain.The Art Portfolio and AssessmentIn the field of art education, portfolios of student work are the most widely used strategy for assessing student art performance (Beattie, 1997; Dorn, Madeja, & Sabol, 2004; Sabol, 1998, 1999, 2001; Sabol & Zimmerman, 1997; Sunstein & Lovell, 2000). …