Assessment Methods in Portuguese Public Universities: A Quantitative Study
Keywords:
Higher education, Assessment methods, Assessment of learning, FacultyCopyright (c) 2020 Iberoamerican Journal of Educational Evaluation
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.
Abstract
This article is part of a broader research project aimed at identifying the most valued and most used assessment methods by faculty in the Portuguese context. The results were collected through a survey with faculty from five Portuguese public universities (n=185) in all professional categories and cycles of study, of the following scientific areas: Hard Sciences, Engineering and Technology Sciences, Medical and Health Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) results indicated a three factors model for both scales: collective methods, portfolios and reflections, and individual methods. The item “written tests and exams” was treated in subsequent analysis independently as observable variable. The results of descriptive statistics identify a greater valorisation and use of written tests and exams and a lower valorisation and use of portfolios and reflections. Data also suggest statistically significant differences in the use of assessment methods according to the cycles of study, the area of knowledge and pedagogical training.
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References
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