PERFORMANCE

ASSESSMENT
 What is Performance Assessment?
 One in which a teacher observes and makes a
judgment about the student’s demonstration
of a skill or competency in creating a
product, constructing a response, or making a
presentation.
 Emphasis on student’s ability to perform tasks
by producing their own work with their
knowledge and skills.
 Examples: singing, playing a piano,
performing gymnastics or completed paper,
project
 Characteristics of Performance
Assessment
• Students perform, create, construct, produce, or do something
• Deep understanding and/or reasoning skills are needed and
assessed
• Involves sustained work, often days
• Calls on students to explain, justify and defend
• Involves engaging ideas of importance and substance
• Relies on trained assessor’s judgments for scoring
• Multiple criteria and standards are prespecified
• No single “correct” answer
 Strengths & Weaknesses of
Performance Assessments
Strengths
Integrates assessment with instruction
Learning occurs during assessment
Provides opportunity for formative
assessment
More authentic
More engaging, active involvement of
students
Emphasis on reasoning skills
Teachers establish criteria to identify
successful performance
Emphasis on application of knowledge
Encourages student self-assessment
Weaknesses
Reliability may be difficult to
establish
Measurement error due to
subjective nature of the scoring
Inconsistent student performance
across time may result in inaccurate
conclusions
Requires considerable teacher time
to prepare and student time to
complete
Difficult to plan for amount of time
needed
 PROCESS-ORIENTED
PERFORMANCE-BASED
ASSESSMENT
It is important to assess students’
learning not only through their outputs
or products but also the processes which
the students underwent in order to
arrive at these products or outputs.
• Learning entails not only what students know
but what they can do with what they know.
• It involves knowledge, abilities, values,
attitudes and habits of mind that affect
academic success and performance beyond
the classroom.
 Process-Oriented Learning
Competencies

• Information about outcomes is important. To

improve outcomes, we need to know about
student experience along the way - about the
curricula, teaching, and kind of students that
lead to particular outcomes.
• Assessment can help us understand which
students learn best under what conditions;
which such knowledge comes the capacity to
improve the whole of their learning.
• Process-oriented performance-based
assessment is concerned with the actual task
performance rather than the output or product
of the activity.
 Learning Competencies

• Competencies are defined as groups or

clusters of skills and abilities needed for a
particular task.
• The objectives focus on the behaviors which
exemplify “best practice” for the particular
task.
• Such behavior range from a “beginner” or
novice level up to the level of expert.
Example

• Task: Recite a Poem by Edgar Allan Poe,

“The Raven”

• Objectives: to enable the students to recite a

poem entitled “The Raven” by Edgar Allan
Poe.
Specifically:

1. Recite the poem from memory without referring to notes;

2. Use appropriate hand and body gestures in delivering the
piece;
3. Maintain eye contact with the audience while reciting the
poem;
4. Create ambiance of the poem through appropriate rising and
falling intonation;
5. Pronounce the words clearly and with proper diction.
• The specific objectives identified constitute
the learning competencies for this particular
task.
• Examples of simple competencies:
– Speak with a well-modulated voice
– Draw a straight line from one point to another point
– Color a leaf with a green crayon
Examples of complex competencies

• Recite a poem with feeling using appropriate

voice quality, facial expression and hand
gestures

• Construct an equilateral triangle given three

non-collinear points

• Draw and color a leaf with green crayon

Task Designing

Standards for designing a task

1. Identifying an activity that would highlight
the competencies to be evaluated.
2. Identifying an activity that would entail
more or less the same sets of competencies.
3. Finding a task that would be interesting and
enjoyable for the students.
Example
• Topic: Understanding biological diversity
• Possible Task Design
– bring the students to the pond or creek
– Ask them to find all living organisms near the pond
or creek
– Bring them to school playground to find as may
living organisms they can find

Observe how the students will develop a

system for finding such organisms, classifying
the organisms and concluding the differences
in biological diversity of the two sites.
Scoring Rubrics

• Rubric is a scoring scale used to assess

student performance along a task-specific set
of criteria.
• Authentic assessment are criterion-
referenced measures;
– A student’s aptitude on a task is determined by
matching the student’s performance against a set
of criteria to determine the degree to which the
student’s performance meets the criteria for the
task.
Example
Criteria 1 2 3

Number of Appropriate 1-4 5-9 10 - 12

hand gestures X1

Appropriate facial Lots of inappropriate Few No apparent

expression X1 facial expression inappropriate inappropriate
facial expression facial expression

Voice inflection X2 Monotone voice used Can vary voice Can easily vary
inflection with voice inflection
difficulty

Incorporate proper Recitation contains Recitation has Recitation fully

ambiance through feelings X3 very little feelings some feelings captures
in the voice ambiance through
feelings in the
voice
Descriptors

Descriptors spell out what is expected of

students at each level of performance for
each criterion.

It tells students what performance looks like at

each level and how their work may be
distinguished from the work of others for
each criterion.
 Why include levels of performance?

1. Clearer expectations
• Students know what is expected of them and
teachers know what to look for in student’s
performance.

• Students better understand what good

performance on the task looks like if levels
of performance are identified.
2. More consistent and objective assessment

3. Better feedback

4. Analytic versus holistic rubrics

An analytic rubric articulates levels of performance
for each criterion so that teacher can assess
students performance on each criterion.
Holistic rubric does not list separate levels of
performance for each criterion. Instead, it assigns a
level of performance across multiple criteria as a
whole.
3 – Excellent Speaker
–Included 10 – 12 changes in hand gestures
–No apparent inappropriate facial expressions
–Utilizes proper voice inflection
–Can create proper ambiance for the poem

2 – Good Speaker
–Included 5 – 9 changes in hand gestures
–Few inappropriate facial expressions
–Have some inappropriate voice inflection changes
–Almost creating proper ambiance

1 – Poor Speaker
–Included 1 – 4 changes in hand gestures
–Lots of inappropriate facial expressions
–Uses monotone voice
–Cannot create proper ambiance
 Example of Analytic Scoring Rubric
(for a Writing Sample)
Objective: Write a character study
Scoring Rubric
Ideas 20 points
Creative presentation 5
Variety of character traits presented 10
Vivid mental pictures 5

Organizations 10 points
Logical presentation of topics 2
Definite pattern discernible 5
Conclusion follows from details 3

Development 20 points
All details relevant 10
Use of a variety of literary devices 5
Variety in sentence structure 5

Conventions 10 points
Grammatical constructions 3
Spelling 2
Punctuation 3
Handwriting 2
 Example of Holistic Rubric
Objective: Write a paper to persuade the reader to accept clearly defined point of
view and course of action

Holistic Scoring Rubric (a paper on “persuading the reader …)

1 Little or no evidence of the skill
Inappropriate language for the intended audience
Few or no supporting arguments
Details lacking or irrelevant

2. Competent performance
Clear and appropriate language for the intended audience
Most supporting arguments are plausible and relevant
Most details are relevant
Evidence of some innovative thinking

3. Outstanding performance
Clear, interesting, and appropriate language
Many plausible and relevant supporting arguments
Ideas are creative and well-expressed
• When to choose an analytic rubric
– For assignments that involve a larger number of
criteria
• When to use holistic rubric?
– When a quick or gross judgment needs to be made
– If the assignment is a minor one such as brief
assignment (e.g. check, check-plus, or no check)
to quickly review student work.
 How many levels of performance should I
include in my Rubric?
• No specific number of levels
• Will vary depending on the task and your needs
• Start with at least three levels and then expand if
necessary.
Example:

Makes eye contact with audience: never sometimes always

Makes eye
contact: never rarely sometimes usually always