PERFORMANCE

ASSESSMENT

What is Performance Assessment?

One in which a teacher observes and makes a
judgment about the students demonstration
of a skill or competency in creating a
product, constructing a response, or making a
presentation.
Emphasis on students 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 assessors judgments for scoring
Multiple criteria and standards are prespecified

No single correct answer

Strengths & Weaknesses of

Performance Assessments
Strengths

Weaknesses

Integrates assessment with instruction

Reliability may be difficult to

establish

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

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 criterionreferenced measures;

A students aptitude on a task is determined by
matching the students performance against a set
of criteria to determine the degree to which the
students performance meets the criteria for the
task.

Example
Criteria

Number of Appropriate
hand gestures

1-4

5-9

10 - 12

Few
inappropriate
facial expression

No apparent
inappropriate
facial expression

X1

Appropriate facial
expression

X1

Lots of inappropriate
facial expression

Voice inflection

X2

Monotone voice used

Can vary voice

inflection with
difficulty

Can easily vary

voice inflection

X3

Recitation contains
very little feelings

Recitation has
some feelings

Recitation fully
captures
ambiance through
feelings in the
voice

Incorporate proper
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 students
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
Creative presentation

20 points
5

Variety of character traits presented 10

Vivid mental pictures
5

Organizations
Logical presentation of topics
Definite pattern discernible
Conclusion follows from details

10 points
2
5
3

Development
All details relevant
Use of a variety of literary devices
Variety in sentence structure

20 points
10
5
5

Conventions
Grammatical constructions
Spelling
Punctuation
Handwriting

10 points
3
2
3
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