Issue 25(2)

 

Portfolio Assessment: Uses, cases, scoring, and impact. (2004) Trudy W. Banta (Ed). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 80 pp., $29.00, ISBN 0-7879-7286-X.

Assessing for Learning: Building a sustainable commitment across the institution. (2004) Peggy L. Maki. Herndon, VA: Stylus Publishing, 256 pp., $24.95, ISBN 1-57922-088-6.

 

Assessment Clear and Simple: A practical guide for institutions, departments, and general education. (2004) Barbara E. Walvoord. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 160 pp., $25.00, ISBN 0-7879-7311-4.

Review By: Maura M. Reynolds

Director of Academic Advising

Hope College (Holland MI)

ASSESSMENT: the topic elicits a range of emotions-suspicion, fear, relief, confusion, boredom.  Three new books take quite different approaches to addressing the challenges of assessment.

 

Banta's Portfolio Assessment is the most focused and the most expensive of the three featured books. It is a collection of 13 previously published essays about the uses, cases, scoring, and impact of portfolios. Eight of the essays were published prior to 1998. One (published in 1992) highlights the use of portfolios in advising. However, this essay focuses on results of a study of student and advisor satisfaction with advising portfolios; the content of these portfolios is described in just two sentences. Those considering advising portfolios will need to look elsewhere for details about the elements to include in a portfolio. The most recently published article (2003) raises red flags about using electronic portfolios for accreditation. After developing an extensive Web-based portfolio and checking that evaluators could work in the electronic format, Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis discovered that more than one half the review team relied primarily on the printed copy of their self-study report. This booklet might be of interest for someone unfamiliar with portfolios (the first three essays are grouped in a section titled What Is a Portfolio?) or for someone considering a research project about portfolios and a literature review of past research. For the general reader, the booklet lacks detail and applicability.

In contrast to Banta's booklet, Maki's book, Assessment for Learning, is full of detail in double-columned small print. Each chapter ends with an extensive list of additional resources; worksheets, guides, and exercises; and in most cases, an appendix of examples. Cases from diverse institutional types (small college, doctoral-granting university, community college, midsized public and private institution) are also included throughout the book's seven chapters. Maki's background as former Director of Assessment at the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) is evident throughout. Her book is dense, and although her subtitle states otherwise, Maki assumes that a context for assessment already exists; she cuts to the quick. While advising is mentioned in a list of educational practices that might be considered for assessment if students are not meeting preset expectations (p. 3), advising is not discussed elsewhere. Unit personnel looking for ideas about assessing advising will not find this information in Maki's book, which is a rich resource for assessment committees or university officers charged with assessment duties; others might find the detail (and small print) overwhelming.

In Assessment Clear and Simple, Walvoord claims a more general audience than does Maki, and she delivers. Her four chapters are clearly labeled For Everyone, For Institution-Wide Planners, For Departments and Programs, and For General Education, She tells readers that they need only read two of the chapters. Unlike Maki's extensive resource list, the annotated short list and two pages of additional sources provided at the end Walvoord's book offer information on specialized resources.

The simple in Walvoord's title is merited. Walvoord anticipates objections to assessment: It is time-consuming or unproductive, is driven by groups not connected with the institution, does not measure the real goals of higher education, and compromises academic freedom and student privacy. She offers strategies for dealing with these very real objections and objectors, and her suggestions make sense. Furthermore, she avoids the jargon that can be off-putting in discussions about assessment. She wins skeptics over by talking about the "stealth assessment" all advisors do so routinely when asking students, colleagues, and alumni to evaluate classes and programs (p. 6).

I was fascinated by her brief discussion of assessment as a form of cross-cultural communication, which she based on Bergquist's The Four Cultures of the Academy (1992). Like Maki, Walvoord, who has done extensive consulting, provides examples from diverse sources, some of which will be familiar to readers of her other work. Walvoord's book is clear, simple, and brief. It has wide margins, large print, and plenty of white or mostly white pages; if she had used Maki's font and double columns, I suspect the book would be one half its current size. The most attractive aspect of Walvoord's book is its straightforward, common sense approach. I found her snippet about assessing portfolios typically direct. A school with "many resources," she reports, tracked just 29 students over 4 years using portfolios-an effort she labels "a huge amount of work" and reminds us that "their [portfolios'] purpose is to bore a deep but narrow hole, to give richer texture and depth to the institution's understanding of how students learn" (pp. 76-77). Mention of advising is, unfortunately, missing in Walvoord's account, though her reflections on assessing higher level skills offer a good starting point for those charged with assessing it.

 

Three different books, three different approaches. No magic bullet. Just lots to think about before, after, and as advisors assess.

 

Bergquist, W. H. (1992). The four cultures of the academy . San Francisco : Jossey-Bass.