Another Fine Mess Assessment's Gotten Us Into: Inheriting the Gooey, Slimy, Delicious Mess of Qualitative Assessment

Authors

  • Marjorie Stewart Art Institute of Pittsburgh

Keywords:

writing, composition and rhetoric, assessment, qualitative

Abstract

The questions that needed to be asked about our students’ writing emerged during the process of discussing the first batch of portfolios. Again, this echoes Broad’s experience. He writes, “From the standpoint of qualitative methods, this late blooming is a good thing because it means this research question could not have inappropriately guided decisions I made in collecting data†(24). Again, the quantitative approach that had been used in the past would not have lead us to the central issues that we needed–and still need–to address.

Downloads