An approach to performance-based assessments that embeds assessments in digital games in order to measure how students are progressing toward targeted goals. To succeed in today's interconnected and complex world, workers need to be able to think systemically, creatively, and critically. Equipping K-16 students with these twenty-first-century competencies requires new thinking not only about what should be taught in school but also about how to develop valid assessments to measure and support these competencies. In Stealth Assessment, Valerie Shute and Matthew Ventura investigate an approach that embeds performance-based assessments in digital games. They argue that using well-designed games as vehicles to assess and support learning will help combat students' growing disengagement from school, provide dynamic and ongoing measures of learning processes and outcomes, and offer students opportunities to apply such complex competencies as creativity, problem solving, persistence, and collaboration. Embedding assessments within games provides a way to monitor players' progress toward targeted competencies and to use that information to support learning. Shute and Ventura discuss problems with such traditional assessment methods as multiple-choice questions, review evidence relating to digital games and learning, and illustrate the stealth-assessment approach with a set of assessments they are developing and embedding in the digital game Newton's Playground. These stealth assessments are intended to measure levels of creativity, persistence, and conceptual understanding of Newtonian physics during game play. Finally, they consider future research directions related to stealth assessment in education.

In the world of assessment, traditional methods often fall short, providing limited insight into individuals' skills and abilities while being susceptible to response biases. Recognizing these shortcomings, researchers have delved into the realm of stealth assessments, a novel approach that embeds traditional measurement techniques within a game-based environment. By seamlessly integrating assessment into gameplay, stealth assessments offer a contextually rich and unobtrusive method of data collection, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the constructs being assessed. Games as Stealth Assessments unveils the promising field of stealth assessment, exploring its design considerations, research methods, and practical applications. Drawing upon a foundation of psychometrically-sound assessment practices, this book delves into the intersection of thoughtful game design and empirical support for the use of stealth assessments. It justifies the adoption of stealth assessments in academic disciplines such as mathematics, science, and literacy, as well as in the assessment of psychological constructs like aggression, social skills, and self-regulation.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Educational Technology examines information on leveraging the power of technology to support teaching and learning. While using innovative technology to educate individuals is certainly not a new topic, how it is approached, adapted, and used toward the services of achieving real gains in student performance is extremely pertinent. This two-volume encyclopedia explores such issues, focusing on core topics and issues that will retain relevance in the face of perpetually evolving devices, services, and specific techniques. As technology evolves and becomes even more low-cost, easy-to-use, and more accessible, the education sector will evolve alongside it. For instance, issues surrounding reasoning behind how one study has shown students retain information better in traditional print formats are a topic explored within the pages of this new encyclopedia. Features: A collection of 300-350 entries are organized in A-to-Z fashion in 2 volumes available in a choice of print or electronic formats. Entries, authored by key figures in the field, conclude with cross references and further readings. A detailed index, the Reader’s Guide themes, and cross references combine for search-and-browse in the electronic version. This reference encyclopedia is a reliable and precise source on educational technology and a must-have reference for all academic libraries.

The capabilities and possibilities of emerging game-based learning technologies bring about a new perspective of learning and instruction. This, in turn, necessitates alternative ways to assess the kinds of learning that are taking place in the game-based environments. The field has been broadening the focus of assessment in game environments (i.e., what we measure), developing processes and methodologies that go beyond psychometrics practices (i.e., how we go about assessment in games), and implementing the game-based assessment (GBA) in real contexts. The current state of the field calls for a revisit of this topic to understand what we have learned from the research on this topic, and how the GBA work changed how the field thinks about assessment beyond game environments. Accordingly, this comprehensive volume covers the current state of research, methodology, and technology of game-based assessment. It features four major themes: what we are measuring in games, how GBA has influenced how people do assessment beyond games, new methods and practices, and implementations of GBA. The audience for this volume includes researchers, graduate students, teachers, and professional practitioners in the areas of education, instructional design, educational psychology, academic and organizational development, and instructional technology.

Build a balanced assessment system and support ESSA requirements! The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) increases assessment flexibility and responsibilities for states and districts, and this comprehensive guide helps leaders meet and succeed that challenge. Authors Chappuis, Commodore and Stiggins have helped thousands of teachers, principals and other educational leaders in becoming assessment-literate and developing assessment systems built on quality assessment. Readers will learn how to: Develop balance in an assessment system by combining formative and summative approaches, providing insight on students’ progress Strengthen classroom-based assessment and involve students in self-assessment

Today educational activities take place not only in school but also in after-school programs, community centers, museums, and online communities and forums. The success and expansion of these out-of-school initiatives depends on our ability to document and assess what works and what doesn't in informal learning, but learning outcomes in these settings are often unpredictable. Goals are open-ended; participation is voluntary; and relationships, means, and ends are complex. This report charts the state of the art for learning assessment in informal settings, offering an extensive review of the literature, expert discussion on key topics, a suggested model for comprehensive assessment, and recommendations for good assessment practices.

An argument that choice-based, process-oriented educational assessments are more effective than static assessments of fact retrieval. If a fundamental goal of education is to prepare students to act independently in the world--in other words, to make good choices--an ideal educational assessment would measure how well we are preparing students to do so. Current assessments, however, focus almost exclusively on how much knowledge students have accrued and can retrieve. In Measuring What Matters Most, Daniel Schwartz and Dylan Arena argue that choice should be the interpretive framework within which learning assessments are organized. Digital technologies, they suggest, make this possible; interactive assessments can evaluate students in a context of choosing whether, what, how, and when to learn. Schwartz and Arena view choice not as an instructional ingredient to improve learning but as the outcome of learning. Because assessments shape public perception about what is useful and valued in education, choice-based assessments would provide a powerful lever in this reorientation in how people think about learning. Schwartz and Arena consider both theoretical and practical matters. They provide an anchoring example of a computerized, choice-based assessment, argue that knowledge-based assessments are a mismatch for our educational aims, offer concrete examples of choice-based assessments that reveal what knowledge-based assessments cannot, and analyze the practice of designing assessments. Because high variability leads to innovation, they suggest democratizing assessment design to generate as many instances as possible. Finally, they consider the most difficult aspect of assessment: fairness. Choice-based assessments, they argue, shed helpful light on fairness considerations.

Americans often complain about the operation of their government, but scholars have never developed a complete picture of people's preferred type of government. In this provocative and timely book, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, employing an original national survey and focus groups, report the governmental procedures Americans desire. Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about most policies and therefore are content to turn over decision-making authority to someone else. People's wish for the political system is that decision makers be empathetic and, especially, non-self-interested, not that they be responsive and accountable to the people's largely nonexistent policy preferences or, even worse, that the people be obligated to participate directly in decision making. Hibbing and Theiss-Morse conclude by cautioning communitarians, direct democrats, social capitalists, deliberation theorists, and all those who think that greater citizen involvement is the solution to society's problems.

Assessment innovation tied to technology is greatly needed in a wide variety of assessment applications. This book adopts an interdisciplinary perspective to learn from advances in developing technology enhanced innovative assessments from multiple fields. The book chapters address the development of virtual assessments including game?based assessment, simulation?based assessment, and narrative based assessment as well as how simulation and game based assessments serve both formative and summative purposes. Further, chapters address the critical challenge of integrating assessment directly into the learning process so that teacher effectiveness and student learning can be enhanced. Two chapters specifically address the psychometric challenges related to innovative items. One chapter talks about evaluating the psychometric properties of innovative items while the other chapter presents a new psychometric model for calibrating innovative items embedded in multiple contexts. In addition, validity issues are addressed related to technology enhanced innovative assessment. It is hoped that the book provides readers with rich and useful information about the development of several types of virtual assessments from multiple perspectives. The authors include experts from industry where innovative items have been used for many years and experts from research institutes and universities who have done pioneering work related to developing innovative items with formative applications to facilitate learning. In addition, expert advice has been provided on validating such work.

There is intense interest in computer games. A total of 65 percent of all American households play computer games, and sales of such games increased 22.9 percent last year. The average amount of game playing time was found to be 13.2 hours per week. The popularity and market success of games is evident from both the increased earnings from games, over $7 Billion in 2005, and from the fact that over 200 academic institutions worldwide now offer game related programs of study. In view of the intense interest in computer games educators and trainers, in business, industry, the government, and the military would like to use computer games to improve the delivery of instruction. Computer Games and Instruction is intended for these educators and trainers. It reviews the research evidence supporting use of computer games, for instruction, and also reviews the history of games in general, in education, and by the military. In addition chapters examine gender differences in game use, and the implications of games for use by lower socio-economic students, for students’ reading, and for contemporary theories of instruction. Finally, well known scholars of games will respond to the evidence reviewed.