Portfolios, Power, and Ethics

Portfolios have been used in a variety of ways for assessing student work. In education, generally, and more specifically in second language education, portfolios have been associated with alternative assessment (Darling‐Hammond, 1994; Hamayan, 1995; Shohamy, 1996; Wolf, Bixby, Glenn, & Gardener, 1991). This article defines alternative assessment as representing a paradigm and culture that is different from traditional testing, requiring a different approach to addressing the issues of validity and ethics. We present a framework that integrates a consideration of how power relations determine the ethics and validity of assessment inferences. We then apply that framework to the assessment of student portfolios in a master of arts in TESOL (MA TESOL) program.