Describes procedures for participatory examinations, a method for achieving student collaboration in marketing education. Suggests that the method teaches students group process, persuasion, teamwork, and other skills needed in the contemporary workplace. (SK)

Alternatives to a solitary testing format can involve students working in teams to arrive at the correct answer. We compared two group assessment methods, cooperative and competitive, to a solitary testing approach. In most comparisons examining the undergraduate respondents' (N = 77) performance, the two group-testing methods were equivalent.…

Using small groups in student cooperative learning enterprises has become a major trend in American higher education (Cheng and Warren 2000). However, several practical issues involving the assessment of an individual's performance in groups have sometimes created resistance to the method from both students and parents (Kagan 1995). This article…

Group exams in science courses can enhance students' achievement and encourage retention of students within the discipline. The challenge to instructors is to recognize when and how they are best used.

Describes a strategy to incorporate the theme of cooperative learning into the format of graded examinations. (JRH)

Cooperative learning is a teaching technique that many teachers of all levels use in their classrooms. Putting students in structured groups so that they may work together has become a popular teaching strategy. Cooperative learning is student-centered teaching that requires the teacher to be facilitator and where students learn from each other.…

This paper looks at using collective critical thinking about issues as an assessment technique instead of or in addition to written tests. A substantial literature review examines the role of assessment and alternative strategies such as group oral exams in classes where cooperative activities and learning have been emphasized. The review reveals…

Examined how well three measures, representing points on a traditional-alternative mathematics assessment continuum, discriminated fourth graders achieving above, at, and below grade level, and how cooperative testing affected performance assessment. Found strong discriminative validity for the more traditional measures but not for performance…

Examined the effects of positive interdependence versus no interdependence on college students' academic achievement. Students took weekly electronic quizzes where they could interact with groupmates in a chat room. Achievement was measured via biweekly examinations. Students in the positive interdependence condition engaged in significantly more…

Describes the California Assessment Program's (CAP) group performance assessment task. Provides a sample task field test in world history, including written and culminating exercises. Suggests that such assessment exercises are popular with students and provide the teacher with an amalgam of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. (DK)

When one instructor began to use cooperative learning groups as a main teaching strategy in teacher education courses, she designed a large group oral exam format to take the place of traditional paper-and-pencil testing. The group oral exam format reduced text anxiety as there was no right or wrong response; it drew on both the cognitive and…

In introductory psychology courses, the desire to cover content can conflict with the desire to acquaint students with psychological thinking processes. The IDEAL method is a group problem solving quiz technique which addresses both of these goals. In the process, instructors choose key concepts from a given reading and divide the class into…

Active student engagement with course materials, such as note-taking and cooperative learning, is associated with greater performance. This study investigated the relationship between scores achieved by students in an undergraduate course and active engagement during testing, whether using a cheat sheet or engaging in a form of cooperative…

Many teachers use cooperative learning methods during instruction but face the problem of aligning evaluation techniques with that instruction. Described are methods to include cooperative problem solving in evaluation, including strategies to identify possible grading schemes, to make appropriate problem choices, and to evaluate individual versus…