An Analysis of Adventures in Assessment

Images of Participatory Assessment in Adult Education

Cathy Luna
Instructor, University Reading/Study Improvement Service

As a sometime adult literacy practitioner particularly interested in alternative assessment, reading through all five issues of Adventures in Assessment felt akin to attending a dream conference. The forty-odd articles in these journals, all written by adult literacy practitioners and program staff, offer a dazzling variety of assessment ideas, tools and procedures, as well as the stories behind their development and ongoing revision.

A bi-annual journal, Adventures in Assessment is edited by Loren McGrail and published by SABES, the Massachusetts System for Adult Basic Education Support. Each edition begins with an introduction by McGrail, and includes articles written by practitioners working in a wide variety of contexts, including workplace, ESL, family literacy, ABE and GED programs. Most pieces include samples of specific forms, checklists, questionnaires, surveys or interview questions, along with a narrative explaining the process of developing, using and, often, revising these tools. The idea behind the publication is that it “will become a resource by and for practitioners to select and adapt tools for their own contexts” (McGrail, AiA, Vol. 1, p. ii).

The first three volumes of Adventures in Assessment are entitled “Getting Started,” “Ongoing” and “Looking Back, Starting Again,” representing three “stages” in learner and program assessment. According to the cover page of Volume 4, “the first three volumes of Adventures in Assessment present a comprehensive view of the state of practice in Massachusetts.” The fourth volume contains articles in all three categories, and Volume 5 (October 1993), called “The Tale of the Tools,” includes reflective pieces written by practitioners who were involved in Component Three of the Greater Opportunities in Adult Learner Success (G.O.A.L.S) Project developed by the Massachusetts Bureau of Adult Education. Although the original intention of the G.O.A.L.S. Project was to “investigate and design an accountability system which would be a true reflection of the field” (Whiton, AiA, Vol. 5, p. 10), these articles demonstrate, instead, practitioners’ commitment to developing alternative assessments whose purpose is primarily informing learners and instruction rather than funders. The result is an incredibly rich collection of “tales” of alternative assessment.

What makes Adventures in Assessment especially intriguing and useful is the journal’s unifying purpose, which, as McGrail writes in the introduction to Volume One, is “to explore participatory assessment or learner-centered approaches to assessment and evaluation” (McGrail, AiA, Vol. 1, p. ii). Citing Lytle (1991), McGrail identifies key features of participatory adult education and assessment. “The most important principle,” she writes, “is that assessment be done with the learner and not to the learner” (p. ii). Specifically, “[p]anticipatory assessment means a collaborative relationship among learners and program staff in determining the goals, texts and contexts of assessment, as well as in judging its outcomes” (p. ii).

This focus on participatory assessment reflects a wider paradigm shift in adult education. McGrail begins her introduction to Volume One with a quote from Lytle (1991) which reveals the interconnected aspects of this shift:

Constructing new images of adults—images built on assumptions of dignity and competence, of literacy as reflective and self-critical practice, and of learning as participatory—requires that we rethink or reconceptualize not only our notions of what counts as literacy but also our methods of inquiry—the processes we use to document and assess learning (Cited in McGrail, 1991, p. ii).

The practitioners in Adventures in Assessment recognize that traditional methods of assessing learners and programs cannot support their commitment to these new ways of thinking about adult learners and literacy learning. Instead, the participatory images of assessment they present move towards a redefinition of assessment as learning. Lytle and Wolfe (1989) write that “[a]lthough various approaches assess literacy as skills, tasks and practices, only participatory approaches have the potential for assessing literacy as critical reflection” (p. 58). Perhaps this is because taking an active role in assessing oneself and one’s world results in the “internal change of consciousness” which Brookfield argues is central to self-directed learning: “This consciousness involves an appreciation of the contextuality of knowledge and an awareness of the culturally constructed form of value frameworks, belief systems and moral codes that influence behavior and the creation of social structures” (Cited in Robishaw, AiA, Vol. 5, p. 94). There is a cyclical relationship between action and reflection, and taking an active role in assessment is part of that cycle: “In the course of this recurring cycle of action and reflection, according to Brookfield, learners become more proactive, assume control over goal setting, and determine personally meaningful criteria for evaluating their learning” (Lytle, 1991, p. 118). Thus, a definition of literacy as critical reflection leads to a reconceptualization of assessment as participatory and as a part of learning. And, similarly, reports of “experiments” with more participatory assessment practices may help practitioners, learners and researchers better understand the nature of critical reflection in adult education.

Recognizing the centrality of the active involvement of adult learners in participatory assessment practices, McGrail and the practitioners contributing to Adventures in Assessment seek to reconceptualize assessment by upsetting the traditional roles of “teachers” and students.” In particular, they make a commitment to look for ways to involve adult learners in the development, use and revision of the tools and processes used to assess learner progress and to evaluate adult literacy classes and programs. What does it look like when adult literacy practitioners attempt to make assessment practices participatory? What new images of assessment and possibilities for learner participation emerge in these articles, and what questions and issues do they raise?

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Possibilities for Participatory Assessment Practices
Figure 1 illustrates some examples of the roles learners are asked to take on in the assessment practices described in Adventures in Assessment. These practices can be categorized as ‘initial’, ‘ongoing’ and ‘looking back’ assessments of learner progress (McGrail, AiA, Vol. 1), assessments of classes and programs, and learner participation in the development and revision of assessments. To help illuminate the participatory aspects of these practices and some of the questions they raise, I will relate them to three of the “general features” of learner-centered or participatory assessment practices that Lytle observes emerging from other “grassroots research and staff development projects” (Lytle, 1988, p. 3):

(1) Adults are active participants, co-investigators in determining and describing their own literacy practices, strengths and strategies. Whether initiated by an administrator, teacher/tutor, or by adults themselves, the design and implementation of the procedures constitute a dialogue or collaboration. (Lytle, 1988, p. 3)

The initial assessment practices described in Figure 1 (next two pages) illustrate adults co-investigating their own literacies through discussion, reading and writing. In contrast to the traditional role of test taker and recipient of expert diagnoses, these adult learners are asked to generate or choose their own goals, answer questions based on their own knowledge of their abilities and interests, and even “place” themselves into classes through a process of self evaluation and discussion with staff. Rosen (AiA, Vol. 2) writes about a portfolio assessment process that asks students to choose not only the contexts, but also the purpose and audience for their portfolio; this illustrates a practice that encourages adult learners to describe themselves in their own terms.

Several practitioners raise concerns about what it might mean to ask learners to describe their progress, however. Isserlis, working with ESL learners, worries that “[f]or learners with little prior schooling or from cultures where teachers dictate what happens in a classroom, the concept of self-assessment may be difficult to grasp. Surely, many learners have an innate sense of their own movement with language and literacy, but the expression/ verbalization of that progress may not be within the frameworks they have developed or use in describing learning” (AiA, Vol. 2. p. 6). Isserlis supports her concern with examples of learners’ very general answers to survey questions such as “What do you think you learned this year?” Often, she believes, the answers to such questions (e.g. “Before I understand nothing. Now I understand small”) reflect learners’ modesty, cultural background, or desire to show appreciation to the teacher, rather than revealing an awareness of specific progress. While, Isserlis writes, “there is value in the process of asking questions about how learners learn and about how they feel they are progressing...[t]his talk about learning...is somewhat of a language of its own and must be learned as (yet another) language” (p. 8). Isserlis’ comments focus practitioners again on a central question: Who is assessment for? One hope is that learning the kind of “metalanguage” needed to talk about changes in their reading/writing strategies, for example, is part of a more general process of critical reflection and growth. McGrail points out that this might be true for everyone:

All of us—administrators, counselors, teachers and students—find it difficult to talk about literacy and language development beyond talking about skills. We are all new to thinking about learning as a process and not just a product. What Isserlis claims is true for many learners… is probably true for practitioners as well. We are just beginning to develop our own framework and don’t always know how to translate our thoughts, hunches, and ideas about what constitutes progress into practice, tools and procedures that measure and document what we believe to be real indicators of growth and change” (AiA, Vol. 3, p. vi).

Perhaps the process of working together to learn a ‘language’ with which to assess ourselves is inseparable from ‘growth and change.’ One caveat to this, however, is that we need to make sure that learners are not stifled or silenced in this process. This might mean encouraging learners to use their first language or other, nonverbal modes of communication as they take part in this process of assessment/literacy learning. The overarching question we are left with is one of communication and collaboration: In what ways can practitioners and learners talk and work together to build frameworks for critical reflection and assessment?

Practitioner/authors in Adventures in Assessment report less involvement of learners in the design and revision of the assessment practices they discuss than in their implementation. While most of the authors relate that they revise assessment practices based on learners’ reactions to them in the classroom, only a few report involving learners in the initial design of assessment practices (Uvin, AiA, Vol. 1) or asking for explicit feedback on the usefulness of particular practices to learners (Barry, AiA, Vol. 5). In Volume 5, however, several authors look closely at what assessment practices have taught them about particular learners and find themselves wanting to know more about “how learners experience learning” (McGrail, AiA, Vol. 5, p.5). Trunnel, for example, investigates the contents of two students’ portfolios and evaluates the usefulness of various assessment tools. He realizes, though, that he cannot do this alone: “All this is fine. But what is helpful FOR THE STUDENT?” (AiA, Vol. 5, p. 46). In her piece (co-authored by Pat F., her student), Barry (AiA, Vol. 5) asks Pat which assessment tools she finds useful. Barry’s report of their discussion represents a needed movement towards learner involvement in designing, revising, and reporting on new assessment practices and, ultimately, in building new frameworks.

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(2) Rather than adhering too strictly to a predetermined script, learner-centered assessment involves dynamic exchanges among learners, texts and teachers/tutors. When difficulties are encountered, assistance is given rather than withheld; the social situation provides a supportive context for experimentation and risk-taking (Lytle, 1988, p.3).

Practices such as asking learners to choose which texts to read during initial placement interviews contradict the rigidity of traditional tests. Other practices that illustrate ‘dynamic exchanges’ include open-ended self and course evaluation questions, ‘town meetings’ (Cason, AiA, Vol. 3) and shared teacher logs (Kelly, AiA, Vol. 5). The idea of a practitioner sharing the anecdotal records she keeps about students represents an important shift in assessment roles; rather than being the evaluator of students’ progress, the practitioner who shares her observations about students becomes a co-investigator, and her students can use her perspective as data for self-reflection. This would also seem to change the power relationships in the classroom, contributing to a “supportive environment for experimentation.” While only one practitioner reports having worked on ways to share teacher log entries with students (Kelly, AiA, Vol. 5, p. 20) several others note in their articles that they are interested in this idea.

Asking learners for feedback about programs and classes and then acting on that feedback is another practice that supports open exchanges and risk-taking on the part of both learners and practitioners. One inspiring example of this is Cason’s report of the all program ‘town meetings’ held by the ESL learners and practitioners at the Log School in Dorchester, Mass. Teachers provided questions as a springboard for two group discussions which resulted in concrete changes in the program. These changes included adding drop-in tutoring times, instituting a different attendance policy and including current students in orientation programs for incoming learners (Cason, AiA, Vol. 2, p. 13). Less tangible results of the meetings, according to Cason, included building the program’s sense of community, and involving students in leadership roles outside of the classroom. In addition, Cason believes that the meetings helped learners envision the ESL program as a part of a larger community, and that this new vision encouraged them to see community issues, such as neighborhood safety, as “legitimate topics of action and discussion in ESL class” (p. 14). The open-ended dynamics of the town meetings seem to have been a springboard for further action for both learners and practitioners.

(3) What’s assessed reflects the particular goals of learners and often includes (a) literacy practices in everyday life (how adults are using what they’ve learned and what significance these things have in their lives), (b) varieties of tasks and strategies for reading and writing particular texts in specific contexts, as well as (c) learners’ perceptions or theories of reading and writing (Lytle, 1988, p.4).

I will discuss the implications of asking learners to set goals later in this paper; in terms of the range of what is being assessed by the practices documented here, however, many of the goal setting questions and activities described in Adventures in Assessment do ask learners to think about the ways they use literacy in their lives and about the ways they think about reading and writing. For example, Ebbit, et al. (AiA, Vol. 2) describe a goal setting process during which “students prioritize, in pairs or as a group, the language survival areas they would like to explore in their ESL class” (p. 50). The Read/Write/Now placement interview form asks adult learners to consider their most important reasons for wanting to learn to read and write (AiA, Vol. 1, p. 20), and their questionnaire, “Looking at Your Own Reading Behavior” asks learners to answer questions such as “Do you ask yourself questions when you read?” (Appendix 10).

Along with assessing what learners accomplish in relation to their language/literacy goals, practitioners express interest in assessing other aspects of growth, including changes in learner self-esteem, confidence, and community building. This interest seems to spring from an expanded notion of what constitutes growth and learning and from a desire to help learners see the progress they are making in all of these facets of their lives. While these aspects of growth are not generally ones that are captured in learners’ initial written goals, practitioners report that these kinds of changes are often the ones that learners themselves notice and value when they occur.

Barry, for example, writes that her student Pat “highlighted the value of teaching and learning from [classmates], and developing a sense of responsibility towards each other” (AiA, Vol. 5, 80). Discussing Pat’s enthusiastic comments about having her work published and offering a workshop to other teachers and students, Barry writes, “The importance of recording these kinds of comments is obvious to me. This is the data which reflects development of self-esteem and self doubt. It is my hope that by recording segments of conversation with students, over time, I will gather a true reflection of their views of themselves as learners” (p. 79).

She then goes on to write that she has heard of another teacher who shared this data with learners through her teachers log, and comments, “I hope to make my log available so that, just as with the other assessment tools, the log is not a device for a teacher to measure a student’s progress, but a method through which learners can assess their own growth.”(p. 79). Barry’s thoughts on the importance of sharing the information she collects about learners emphasize that the primary purpose of this kind of information should be to inform learner self-assessment and not to convince funders of a program’s viablity; uses of this kind of information which do not include the learner bypass the opportunity for critical reflection and therefore seem unproductive, if not exploitative.

This conclusion raises the question, though, of what kind of information about learner progress should be used for accountability purposes. Comings, in a letter in Vol. 3 of Adventures in Assessment, argues that learner assessment should not be used for program evaluation:

Using student assessment as the measure of effectiveness for program accountability, no matter how good the assessment tool, will always make the test result the focus of programs, rather than the needs of the student. Funding agencies do have a legitimate right to measure the effectiveness of the programs they fund. But, looking at student progress does not necessarily provide a way to judge whether or not money is being well spent” (p. 43).

Comings argues instead that programs should be judged against “standards of practice and service, “ following the accreditation model used by colleges and universities (p. 44). Such a model might free practitioners and learners to focus less on measuring and documenting learner progress for others and more on making sure learners have opportunities for self assessment and critical reflection.

Overall, the participatory assessment practices described in Adventures in Assessment demonstrate a range of learner roles that are characterized by action, reflection and decision-making. They involve learners in generating goals, making choices, assessing their own progress, providing feedback and bringing about change.

The image of learners that informs and results from these practices is very different from the image inspired by traditional assessments that focus on uncovering deficits and prescribing remediation. Instead of the picture of a passive adult learner who waits for someone else to tell her what she needs to learn and then “gives” her that needed knowledge, these assessment practices paint portraits of adults who come to programs with valuable experience and knowledge and with their own agendas. As Lytle (1988) writes, “these new approaches to assessment communicate respect for adults — for what they bring to learning and for what they come to learn” (p. 3).

The practitioners writing about these new approaches raise many important questions about their own assumptions and about their hopes and fears for the future of participatory adult education and assessment. Reading through these journals, I hear a conversation among practitioners, one that often focuses on what to do next. In order to further clarify this conversation and to contribute some ideas towards next steps, I will discuss one assessment practice that many of these practitioner/authors write about: asking learners to set goals.

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Learners Setting Goals
One possibility for learner participation in initial and ongoing assessment that is advocated by almost every author is learner goal setting. According to McGrail, a key principle of alternative assessment is that “it should help the learner achieve his or her goals. In other words, what is assessed must reflect what the learner wishes or needs to accomplish” (AiA, Vol 1, p. 3). This assumption leads to practices designed to help learners uncover and articulate their initial and ongoing goals. In an ESL class, this might take the form of learners drawing maps to show where want to be able to use English (Fandel, AiA, Vol. 1). In a class for adult beginning readers and writers, it might involve checking off goals from a Goals List created by practitioners (often collected from past learners) or answering more open-ended questions such as “What are some things that you want to do that being able to read and write better will help you do?” (Kelly, AiA, Vol. 1). Some programs ask learners to generate or choose these goals independently, while others set up group discussion or conversations with teachers for the purpose of setting goals.

A variety of goals are suggested by the goals lists; these are often categorized under titles such as “Personal,” “Family,” “Work,” “Community,” and “Academic” (see Vol. 1, appendices 8, 15, 18 & 20). Such categories reflect a definition of literacy as practices and an understanding that adults’ literacies are multiple and context-specific. Examples of goals from one checklist include: “To read a phone book”, “To write notes to school”, “To register to vote”, “Punctuation”, and “To tell time” (Germanowski, AiA, Vol. 1, Appendix 17). Illustrative of the few learner goal statements that were included in articles (most presented blank rather than completed forms) are statements such as “Understanding bigger words,” “To write letters to friends and family,” and “I will like can speak English to be a beautician” (Fandel).

In many classes, learners are asked to record their goals and then monitor their progress towards meeting them. Some programs, such as Read/Write/Now (a library-sponsored program for adult beginning readers and writers) also use ‘learning contracts’ which involve learners in creating a “plan of action” for meeting their stated or chosen goals (Kelly, AiA, Vol. 1). Learner goals are usually “revisited” both during and at the end of class cycles; clearly, many practitioners see learner involvement in setting, meeting and revising goals as a valuable assessment practice.

Indeed, these practitioners consider learner goal setting to be central to participatory education. Goal setting is seen as empowering because it asks learners to identify what they want to accomplish and motivating because it encourages them to focus on the progress they make towards their own goals. Kelly articulates this belief in the context of the Read/Write/Now program:

One of the goals of a whole-language program is to empower learners by helping them to become more self-directed, to identify and work towards their own goals for learning, literacy and life… Both learners and teachers need to know why they do what they do in a classroom so that they can have a sense of progress, as well as make decisions about future directions. (AiA, Vol. 1, p.17)

As Kelly’s words imply, practitioners also attempt to change power relationships by basing curriculum and instruction on the goals that learners set. For example, in a written ‘conversation’ with McGrail, Lindy Whiton, coordinator of Component Three (alternative assessment) of the G.O.A.L.S. Project, describes the relationship between goals and curriculum at the Log School (see also Cason, AiA, Vol. 3): “When they get a group of people in, they take those goals...that are the most in common across all learners [and that] is where they start their curriculum....In the end the students do the evaluation: Did your goals get met?” (McGrail and Whiton, AiA, Vol. 3, p. 39-40). Many practitioners describe more individualized processes for using learners’ goals to develop curriculum; these might involve using goal sheets to create specific assignments (Gluckman, et. al., AIA, Vol. 3, p. 26) or activity plans (Martin, Hall & Bahre, AIA, Vol. 4, p. 16). One hope is that this kind of learner input will result in a curriculum that directly addresses learners’ lives and interests.

In addition to providing learners with inspiration and with input, practitioners regard goal setting as a way to help learners see learning as active and themselves as subjects: “It is impossible to see education as the passive receiving of information from others when, as a learner, you have just written down a plan of action for meeting your own goals in reading and writing, and this plan involves you in doing things, not just listening while a teacher tells you about doing things” (Kelly, AiA, Vol. 1, p. 26). These practitioners’ conceptions and uses of learner goal setting as an integral part of assessment reinforce a definition of learning as participatory and of literacy as practices and critical reflection.

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However, some practitioners/authors also express concerns about the practice of asking adult learners to set goals, concerns centered on the need for cultural sensitivity and for dialogue and negotiation. For example, Don Robishaw (a SABES Research Consultant) sees goal setting as “a linear, future-oriented, individualistic, Western phenomenon which is not always transferable to English as a Second Language (ESL) learners from non-Western cultures and other domestic cultural contexts” (AiA, Vol. 5, p. 93). Writing from the perspective of someone who “grew up in a housing project” and “avoided schooling as much as possible up to the age of sixteen,” (p. 93), Robishaw worries that goal setting may be a culturally-specific activity that makes little sense to learners who did not necessarily experience life as that ‘controllable’ growing up. One assumption that informs participatory education is that many adult literacy learners come to adult education having internalized negative images of themselves as learners (Lytle, 1991); Robishaw sees this as both the problem with goal setting — because these adults don’t necessarily believe that they can learn — and as a possible solution. He refers to the article, “Group Goal Setting Activities: An Approach from Youth Service Corps” (AiA, Vol. 4), which describes structured pre-goal setting discussions in which youth service corpsmembers critically reflect together on their past schooling and life experiences. Robishaw sees this participatory group process as invaluable: “Adult learners need to reflect on their past life history and to sort through their experiences in order to see beyond their own formal schooling experiences in order to better develop, persist and continue with learning” (p. 94-95). Robishaw puts goal setting in the larger context of self-directed learning and reminds us that learners’ experiences need to be both the starting place and the medium of a participatory assessment process. He also demonstrates that goal setting needs to be an interactive process, that it is not enough to simply ask learners set goals.

Kelly, writing about the evolution of Read/Write/Now’s initial assessment tools and processes, echoes this idea. Citing learner and practitioner frustration with unrealistic or very general goals, Kelly writes about the need for teacher participation in the goal setting process:

Learning about helping learners to choose goals and trying to empower them as decision-makers in their own learning has been an evolutionary process....We have gone from a stance of very limited interference and influence in the learners’ decision-making about their educational goals to the role of full participants in a learning community. Full participation means listening to each other, sharing our opinions, knowledge, and advice in the process of negotiating the decisions that we often make together (Kelly, AiA, Vol 1, p. 28).

What Kelly is talking about is the balance of power that seems to be at the heart of many practitioners’ concerns and questions about participatory assessment. It is important to recognize and acknowledge the fact that most (if not all) practitioners and learners come to adult education with images of “teachers,” “students” and “school” that involve unequal power relationships. Participatory education and assessment is about trying to change these relationships, and this is a very difficult task. In a fascinating way, the evolution Kelly describes reveals the dynamics of this struggle. To begin with, practitioners believe that asking adult learners to set their own goals makes sense; they are adults and know what they need out of a class or program. However, when practitioners abdicate their own power by not helping learners do this often unfamiliar task, everyone can end up frustrated. In the end, a participatory approach to goal setting means that both learners and practitioners need to have a voice in the process. Both parties need to trust that the other will be honest and explicit about their agenda and will contribute their particular experience and expertise. Empowerment is not something that adult literacy practitioners can give to adult learners; it is, instead, both the process and the product of shared participation and critical reflection.

I can almost ‘see’ empowerment in the pages of Adventures in Assessment; learners and teachers both have a voice in the assessment practices that practitioners describe. In terms of where to go next, the authors in Volume 5 point the way. Practitioners need to invite learners into the conversation about assessment, not just into the assessment practices themselves. I look forward to hearing more from learners about what assessment practices are valuable to them in future issues. I also thank the practitioners who have contributed to Adventures in Assessment so far; they have begun a powerful conversation.

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References

Barry, E. (1993). Reflections on Ongoing Assessment: How to Document Self-Esteem and Community. Adventures in Assessment, 5, p. 75-88.

Cason, A. (1992). Sitting Down Together at the End of the Year. Adventures in Assessment, 3, p. 11-14.

Comings, J. (1992). Keeping Assessment Out of Program Accountability (Letter). Adventures in Assessment, 3, p. 43-44.

Ebbitt, K., Lee, P., Nelson, P., and Wheeler, J. (1992). Three by Three by Four: Ongoing Assessment at the Community Learning Center. Adventures in Assessment, 2, p. 49-58.

Fandel, L. (1991). Getting in Touch: Participant’s Goals and Issues. Adventures in Assessment, 1, p. 11-16.

Germanowski, M. (1991). The Education Goals Assessment Packet. Adventures in Assessment, 1, p. 33-36.

Isserlis, J. (1992). What You See: Ongoing Assessment in the ESL/Literacy Classroom. Adventures in Assessment, 2, p. 41-48.

Kelly J. (1991). Read/Write/Now Adult Learning Center Assessment Adventures. Adventures in Assessment, 1, p. 17-30.

Kelly, J. (1993). Reflections on the Ideal vs. Real. Adventures in Assessment, 5, p. 16-27.

Lytle, S. (1988). From the Inside Out: Reinventing Assessment. Focus on Basics, 2 (1), p. 1-4.

Lytle, S. (1991). Living Literacy: Rethinking Adult Development in Adulthood. Linguistics and Education 3, p. 109-138.

Lytle, S. and Wolfe, M. (1989). Adult Literacy Education: Program Evaluation and Learner Assessment. Columbus: ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult Career and Vocational Education.

Martin, S., Hall, S., and Bahre, J. (1993). Empowering the Student through Goal Setting. Adventures in Assessment 4, p. 15-21.

McGrail, L. (1991). Introduction. Adventures in Assessment, 1, p. ii-iii.
McGrail, L. (1992). Introduction: Looking Back, Starting Again. Adventures in Assessment, 3, p. v-vii.

McGrail, L. (1993). Introduction: A Matter of Stance and Dance. Adventures in Assessment, 5, p. 4-7.

Practical Education for Citizenship and Employment (PECE). (1993). Group Goal Setting Activities: An Approach from the Youth Service Corps. Adventures in Assessment, 4, p. 8-14.

Robishaw, D. (1993). Letter from the Field: The Case for Pre-Goal Setting. Adventures in Assessment, 5, p. 93-96.

Rosen, D. (1992). The Progress Portfolio. Adventures in Assessment, 2, p. 1-4.

Trunnel, P. (1993). Danger: Road Construction Ahead. Adventures in Assessment, 5, p. 28-48.

Uvin, J. (1991). Partners in Evaluation: Evaluating the South Cove Manor Nursing Home Workplace Education Program with Participants. Adventures in Assessment, 1, p. 5-10.

Whiton, L. (1991). The Process of Component #3. Adventures in Assessment, 5, p. 10-15.

Whiton, L. and McGrail, L. (1992). Creating Change or Creating Accessibility: A Dialogue. Adventures in Assessment, 3, p. 41-46.

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This article was published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 6 (Spring 1994), SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 1994.

Funding support for the publication of this document on the Web provided in part by the Ohio State Literacy Resource Center as part of the LINCS Assessment Special Collection.