Josh OConner CPS 602 ePortfolio Annotated Bibliography 31-Aug-2012 Wisniewski, J., & Olson, C. (2010).

In quest of meaningful assessment of international learning: The development and implementation of a student survey and eportfolio approach. The Journal of General Education , 59 (3), 143-158. In this article the authors explore the complexities associated with assessing student competencies in relation to their ability to understand global issues and communicate across cultural differences (Wisniewski & Olson, 2010, p. 143). The article offers insight into the need for such an assessment as well as looming requirements via post-secondary accreditation agencies which are pushing collegiate institutions toward developing more robust mechanisms of evaluating the synergistic educational accomplishments of students. The authors point out that the current mechanism for comprehensive student evaluation are currently lagging behind the need and that proper evaluation requires a shift in thinking which focuses on more comprehensive and holistic measures of student evaluation. The authors examine existing research on how international learning outcomes are articulated finding a wide degree of variability throughout the research and among academic institutions. The authors present the general outcomes of perspective consciousness, state-of-the-planet awareness, crosscultural awareness, knowledge of global dynamics, and awareness of human choices (Wisniewski & Olson, 2010, p. 146). Overall the authors note that the current state of ambiguity in outcomes provides more confusion than clarity. Additionally the authors make the point that learning outcomes must be individually catered to each discipline and that broad overarching outcomes are ineffective. The authors conduct an additional research survey to understand current methods of evaluation within the field including tests, portfolios, interviews, surveys, and inventories providing a comparative analysis of each. The authors specifically evaluate the survey and portfolio methods in a number of academic institutions through the Lessons Learned project in order to understand the effectiveness of either method in an actual operationalized setting. Overall the article provides a broad overview into the topic of international learning assessments. By the authors own admissions the evaluation of the learning assessment models presented is rudimentary at best and cannot be used to extrapolate any definitive conclusions across disciplines. The authors conclude the article with an admonition that more robust assessment techniques such as the ePortfolio are more labor intensive and that the outcome is unlikely to be favorable unless participation is compulsory. The article serves well as an introduction to of international learning assessments including the range of issues from definition to implementation, but it falls short of providing any clear evidence regarding the effectiveness of any particular assessment technique.