Portfolio as an Alternative Assessment: Effects on Problem-Solving Performance, Critical Thinking, and Attitude in Mathematics

Abstract

Assessment has long been the "missing link" in the effective curriculum program. According to Burke (1997) teachers who introduce exciting educational strategies like cooperative learning, higher-order thinking skills, multiple intelligences, and integrated curricula challenge students to expand their critical thinking, let alone stretch their creativity. Their teaching signals a new order of challenge and change, but when they end the unit with a multiple-choice test, their assessment signals a return to tradition. It does not take long for students to figure out how to study and what to value. If teachers teach what they think is important, they need to test what they think is important.

Traditionally, assessment in mathematics courses consists mainly of tests, quizzes, and textbook exercises. Webb (1992) explained that tests are important quantitative assessment tools, but in and of themselves do not constitute the totality of assessment. Traditional assessment techniques make it difficult to develop inferences about students' learning, and consequently new ideas about how to improve students' learning are less likely to take place.

Thus, even preservice mathematics teachers enter their mathematics courses with expectations for similar assessment. The current reform movement in mathematics education recommends that student assessment be integral to instruction and that multiple assessment be used (NCTM, 1989).

The Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM, 1991) highlights the need for teachers to reflect on their practices and to use alternative assessment methods. Mathematics teacher- educators must model these practices in methods and content courses. In the words of the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards (NCTM, 1990), merely adding scores on written tests will not give a full picture of what students know. The challenge for teachers is to try different ways of grading, scoring, and reporting to determine the best ways to describe students' knowledge of mathematics, as indicated in these standards.

It is not enough to preach about alternative assessment. If preservice teachers are expected to adopt multiple assessment methods, then they must experience these. By using multiple methods of assessment, the teacher educator not only models behavior for the preservice teachers but also assesses their learning and understanding.

The present study was anchored on how alternative assessment practices can improve the problem solving performance of preservice teachers in mathematics and thereby enhance the critical thinking, as well as their attitude toward mathematics. Many studies have been done about alternative assessment but no study has focused on the effects of alternative assessment on the problem-solving performance of the students, specifically of preservice teachers of mathematics.