Alternative assessment in higher education: An experience in descriptive statistics

Assessment-led reform is now one of the most widely favored strategies to promote higher standards of teaching, more powerful learning and more credible forms of public accountability. Within this context of change, higher education in many countries is increasingly subjected to demands to implement alternative assessment strategies that provide outcome measures of both student and program effectiveness. This article examines a process of integrating real-life data investigation in a course on descriptive statistics at a teachers college. The article describes this process and considers implications of this experience in terms of its potential to improve the quality of learning and assessment of knowledge in descriptive statistics in higher education.