| This study examines the use of writing portfolios including student work from general education courses and an essay written to a prompt, to assess writing skills and general education. The assessment is submitted as students reach third-year status, and is intended to meet both campus educational needs and outside agency requirements. The impetus for the choice of writing as the test medium is founded in the ideas that such portfolios produce sufficient data for the state-mandated requirements to assess education in general, and that the creation of the portfolio itself and the process needed to support it potentially provide beneficial and substantial educational affects on students, teachers, and administrators. The pedagogical arguments for the choice of the portfolio are the heart of the study.; Thirty-nine states now require universities and colleges to conduct their own in-house assessments, and more are considering them (Johnson and Foxley, 1998). The nature of assessment is generally left to the college or university, and this dissertation points to one positive method of fulfilling the requirement, a method that appears to provide academic benefits.; The first chapter discusses the thesis and its setting and provides a short look at the needs of responsible political and governmental agencies as they require colleges and universities to self-assess. Chapter Two focuses on the research and on benefits of using a writing portfolio as the assessment tool in a broad-based evaluation. Chapter Three presents the portfolio program at Washington State University, how it developed and how the experience contributes to the case for portfolio-based assessment. Chapter Four combines the research and theories of the previous chapters into a conclusion and summary.; There are two major premises and ultimate conclusions of the dissertation. First, broad-based assessment using a well-designed writing portfolio at the rising junior level of education can usually meet the state need for college or university participation in assessment of general education. Second, the particular use of writing portfolios as the test medium appears to cause an increased awareness of and attention to writing and communication needs in both faculty and students. The results observed include alterations in faculty teaching methods and curriculum involving writing, an expanded vision of the need for and value of writing, an alteration in tested and testable criteria used as evidence of education, and most of all an increased climate of learning using writing among teachers of all disciplines. |
