Chapter 7

PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT METHODS

Portfolio

- a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student's efforts, progress and
achievements in one or more areas. The collection must include:

student participation in selecting contents

the criteria for selection

the criteria for judging merit and evidence of student self-reflection

. - a portfolio continually grows and accumulates as the student progresses in the particular
learning task.

1. Features and Principles of Portfolio Assessment

- Portfolio assessment possesses several features and essential characteristics which are
enumerated below:

A. A portfolio is a form of assessment that students do together with their teachers.

B. A portfolio represents a selection of what the students believe are best included from among the
possible collection of things related to the concept being studied.

C. A portfolio provides samples of the student's work which show growth over time.

D. The criteria for selecting and assessing the portfolio contents must be clear to the teacher and the
students at the outset of the process.

2. Purposes of Portfolio Assessment

- Portfolio assessment has several purposes and rationale for its use.

it matches assessment to teaching.

has clear goals.

gives a profile of learners' abilities in terms of depths, breath, and growth.

a tool for assessing a variety of skills not normally testable in a single setting for traditional testing.

develops awareness of students' own learning.

caters to individuals in heterogenous class.

develops social skills.

It develops independent and active learners.

Can improve motivation for learning and thus achievement.

It provides opportunity for student-teacher dialogue.

3 . Essential Elements of the Portfolio

1. Cover Letter summarizes the evidence of a student's learning and progress.

2. Table of Contents with numbered pages.

3. Entries- both core and optional

4. Dates on all entries, to facilitate proof of growth over time.

5. Drafts of aural/oral and written products and revised versions.

6. Reflections can appear at different stages in the learning process.

4. Stages in Implementing Portfolio Assessment

Stage 1: Identifying teaching goals to assess through portfolio.

The usual first step of organizing portfolio assessment is to establish the teaching goals.

Stage 2: Introducing the idea of portfolio assessment to your class.

Portfolio assessment is a new thing for many students who are used to traditional testing. The meaning
of the word "portfolio" from portare (carry) and foglio (sheet of paper).

Stage 3: Specification of Portfolio Content

Specify what and how much have to be included in the portfolio both core and options.

Stage 4: Giving clear and detailed guidelines for portfolio presentation

There is a tendency for students to present as many evidence of learning as they can when left on their
own.

Stage 5: Informing key school officials, parents and other stakeholders.

Do not attempt to use the portfolio assessment method without notifying your department head, dean
or principal.

Stage 6: Development of the Portfolio

- Both students and teacher need support and encouragement at this stage in the process of
portfolio development.

5. Types of Portfolios

A. Documentation Portfolio - this approach involves a collection of work over time showing growth and
improvement reflecting students' learning of identified outcome.

B. Process Portfolio - demonstrates all facets of phases of the learning process.

C. Showcase Portfolio - shows the best of the students' outputs and products.

6. Assessing and Evaluating the Portfolios

- Detailed rating criteria may be developed to evaluate the finished portfolio presented by
students. In general, however, they should include the following:

- Thoughtfulness

- Growth and development in relationship to key curriculum expectancies and indicators.

- Understanding and application of key process.

- Completeness, correctness, and appropriateness of products and processes presented in the portfolio.

- Diversity of entries.

7. Student-Teacher Conferences

The main philosophy embedded in portfolio assessment is "shared and active assessment". The teacher
should have short individual meetings with each student, in which progress is discussed and goals are
set for a future meeting.
 Chapter 8

Grading and Reporting

Grading and Reporting

- One of the more frustrating aspects of teaching is that of grading and reporting student
progress since there are so many factors to consider, and so many decisions to be made.

1. Functions of Grading and Reporting System

A. Enhancing students' learning - clarifying instructional objectives for them, showing students
strengths and weaknesses, providing information on personal-social development, enhancing students'
motivation and indicating where teaching might be modified.

B. Reports to parents/guardians- grading and reporting systems also inform parents and guardians of
students on the progress of their wards.

C. Administrative and guidance uses - helping to decide promotion, graduation, honors, athletic
eligibility.

2. Types of Grading and Reporting Systems

A. Traditional letter-grade system - students' performances are summarized by means of letters. Thus, A
stands for excellent, C for average, D for needing improvement and an F as a failure.

B. Pass-fail - utilizes a dichotomous grade system.

C. Checklists of objectives - the objectives of the course are enumerated.

D. Letters to parents/guardians - are useful supplement to grades.

E. Portfolios - is a set of purposefully selected works, with commentary by student and teacher.

F. Parent-teacher conference - discuss the pupils' progress.

3. Development of a Grading and Reporting System.

Grading and reporting systems are guided by the functions to be served by such in the educative
process.

- based on clear statement of learning objectives.

- consistent with the school standards.

- based on adequate assessment.

- based on the right level of detail.

- provide for parent-teacher conferences as needed.

4. Assigning Letter Grades and Computing Grades

- Grades assigned to students must include only achievement. It is ver important to avoid the
temptation to include effort for less able students because it is difficult to assess effort or potential and
it is difficult to distinguish ability from achievement.

The following guidelines may be considered in combining such data:

- Properly weight each component to create a composite.

- Put all components on same scale to weight properly:

5. Norm or Criterion-Referenced Grading

Norm-referenced grading system:

A. Grade depends on what group you are in, not just your own performance;

B. Typical grades may be shifted up or down, depending on group's ability;

C. Widely used because much classroom testing is norm-referenced.

Criterion-referenced grading system:

A. Grade does NOT depend on what group you are in,

B. Grading is a complex task, because grades must:

i. clearly define the domain;

ii. clearly define and justify the performance standards;

iii. be based on criterion-referenced assessment.

C. Conditions are hard to meet except in complete mastery learning settings.

6. Distribution of Grades and Guidelines for Effective Grading

- The norm-referenced or relative distribution is a big issue because of the following

considerations:

A. normal curve is defensible only when we have a large unselected group;

B. when "grading on the curve" school staff should set fair ranges of grades for different groups and
course;

C. when "grading on the curve" any pass-fail decisions should be based ob an absolute standard

D. standards and ranges should be understood and followed by all teachers.

Criterion-referenced or absolute grading system is not an issue because:

A. it seldom uses letter grades alone;

B. it often includes checklist of what have been mastered.

C. the distribution of grades is not predetermined.

Guidelines for Effective Grading

A. Describe grading procedures to students at beginning of instruction.

B. Clarify that course grade will be based on achievement only.

C. Explain how the factors will be reported.

D. Relate grading procedures to intended learning outcomes.

E. Obtain valid evidence.

F. Prevent cheating.

G. Return and review all the test results.

H. Properly weight the various types of achievements.

I. Do not lower an achievement grade for tardiness.

J. Be fair. Avoid bias.

7. Conducting Parent-Teacher Conferences

- Parent-teacher conferences become productive when they are carefully planned and the
teacher is skilled in handling such conferences.

Guidelines for a good conference:

A. Make plans.

B. Start positive and maintain a positive focus.

C. Encourage parents to participate and share information.

D. Plan actions cooperatively.

E. End with positive comment.

F. Use good human relations skills.

 CHAPTER 9

THE USE OF STATISTICS IN OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT

l. General Concepts on statistics and Learning Inquiry

- Learning is more adequately achieved through researched-based inquiry. Researched-based

inquiry makes our academic pursuits scientific and therefore reliable, while guarding us against errors.

What is Statistics?

- Statistics is a scientific discipline. It is a branch of Mathematics “that deals with the collection,
organization, presentation, computation and interpretation of data which are the outcomes learning”

Two general types of Statistical analysis:

A. Descriptive Statistics

-Uses methods to summarize a collection of data by describing what was observed using
numbers or graphs. Numerical description includes mean and standard deviation for data types or
frequency and percentage for describing categories.

B. Inferential Statistics

-Called predictive statistics, uses methods to draw patterns in the collected data, and then
makes conclusion prediction forecast about a group or about a process being studied.

Statistical Methods

- Statistics is useful in the teaching-learning process along several researched-based inquiries:

1. Experimental Studies

These inquiries investigate causes, in addition to drawing conclusion on the effct of changes in
elements (called variables) being studied. .

2. Inferential Studies
 This does not involve any experimental group and control group. Instead, data are gathered and
the correlations between intervention (predictors) and the results derived from a single group are
investigated. A survey may be used to collect observation followed by statistical analysis of collected
data.

Statistical inquiries observe five basic steps:

Planning the research-based inquiry around size, hypothesis, variability, subjects, etc;

designing the experiment by blocking to reduce errors random assignment for unbiased estimates, and
mapping procedures (experimental protocol);

implementation and analyzing data;

further examination of data for secondary analysis; and

Documentation and presentation of result and study.

ll. Conceptualization, Operationalization and Measurement

- The use of statistics can help in the whole process of outcome-based teaching and learning. It
is good to know that statistics can help clarify such concepts.

Concepts and constructs

There are three classes of phenomena which can be statistically measured:

Direct observables

which requires indirect observations, such as the idea of a “female” indirectly observed through signs of
a person’s gender

Constructs a creation we form in the mind resulting from observation.

2. Indicators and dimensions

Indicator- is a sign of the presence of concept (variable) under study. For example, visiting a home for
the aged can be an indicator of human compassion.

Dimension- is a specific aspect of a concept combined into groups or sub-groups, such as compassion
toward neighbor/fellow nationals/foreigners/plants. Various numerical indicators can be assigned for
each dimension. Then we can determine which group the population-respondents have more
compassion for.

Levels of Measurement

Variables- are logical set of attributes, e.g. gender.

Attribute- is a quality of characteristics of something.

Attributes may represent any of the 4 levels of measurement:

1. Nominal measure

- a level of measurement describing a variable that has attributes which

are different, e.g. gender, birthplace, college major, etc. This kind of measurement simply counts and
draws conclusion from the number of exapmles.

2. Ordinal measure

- a level of measurement describing a variable with attributes that can be in a

rank-order along some dimension.

3. Interval measure

- A level of measurement describing a variable whose attributes are rank-ordered and have equal
distances between adjacent attributes.

4. Ration measure

- A level of measurement describing a variable with attributes that have all the qualities of
nominal, ordinal and interval, and based on a “true zero” point.

lll. Indexes, Scales, Typologies

- The use of index or scale help to explain and elicit understanding of concepts with a range of
conceptual variations.
 - In an Index scores for individual attributes are constricted. On the other hand in a Scale, scores
are assigned to patterns of ideas.

- Scale is constructed by assigning scores or patterns of responses according to higher and lower
degrees of civic participation.

Typology is the classification of observation in terms of attributes on two or more variables.

Quantification of data

- Quantitative analysis can be handled by computer programs, as a long as these computers are
able to read the data collected during research-inquiries. In case of a survey, some data are easily
quantifiable since numerical representation can be assigned variables.

Univariate Analysis

- This is an analysis of a single variable for purposes of description. The most basic format in
presenting univariate data is to show individual cases, listing the attribute for each case under study.

Bivariate Analysis

- A bivariate relationship refers to two variables, thus if opinion of support are met or not met,
there is a bivariate relationship between two items.

Tests of statistical significance

- These are called parametric test of significance. Short stating the research is generally
significant the tests refer to the likelihood that relationships between variables is significant enough to
be meaningful.

Path Analysis

- This assumes that the values of one variable are cause by the value of another variable. This
makes the distinction between independent and dependent to be important.

Multivariate techniques.

- Other than the rudimentary statistical data manipulation, such as through the use of tables and
percentages, there are more elaborate models of statistical analysis.

There are other Multivariate Techniques, and will serve our purpose to indentify them. They are as
follows:

Time-Series Analysis
 - This represents changes in one or more variables over time

Factor Analysis

- This is used to discover patterns among the variations in values of several factors. Using a
complex algebraic method, the problem of delinquency can be studies using a questionnaire which asks
respondents.

Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)

- Cases under study are combined into groups representing an independent variable, and the
extent to which the groups differ from one another is analyzed in relation to some dependent variables.

REYES, CHRISTINE A.