Performance-Based Assessment
This research brief describes the first phase of the accountability/assessment research team's work. It addresses twelve questions on performance-based assessment. In the second phase they will study leading school divisions to determine how they are using performance-based assessment for instructional and accountability purposes, and how the school divisions support such efforts.
Dr. John Seyfarth of VCU is directing MERC's research on performance-based assessment with assistance from Jeanne Schlesinger. He is advised by a study group consisting of Lisa Kaufmann, Chesterfield County Public Schools; Mona Harrison, Colonial Heights City Public Schools; Carole Urbansok-Eads, Hanover County Public Schools; Sanford Snider, Henrico County Public Schools; Linda Hyslop, Hopewell City Public Schools; Doris Ownsby, Powhatan County Public Schools; and Betty Williams and Richard Williams, Richmond City Public Schools. The following questions were investigated through a review of literature:
How do authentic assessment, performance assessment and alternative assessment differ?
Performance Assessment requires a student to perform tasks that demonstrate specific knowledge or skills in a variety of formats, ranging from simple student constructed responses to comprehensive collections or demonstrations of bodies of work over time.
Authentic Assessment refers to evaluation activities in which students are expected to use previously learned knowledge to produce integrated and original thoughts, objects or performances. These activities have meaning and significance independent of the assessment situation.
Alternative Assessment refers to evaluation activities that depart from prevailing methods of measuring achievement, such as multiple choice tests, in favor of measures such as problem solving and original insightsor products.
What are the pros and cons of performance assessment?
The principal advantage of performance assessment is its potential to bring about changes in curriculum and instruction. These changes are designed to foster the development of knowledge and skills important for life-long learning and diminish the practice of teaching to the test.
A problem with performance assessment is that it is an untried methodology requiring technical knowledge which is costly to develop and complex to administer and evaluate. Teachers will find that evaluating individual student performance is more time consuming and less standardized.
What strategies are being used by states, school divisions, schools, and teachers in the name of performance assessment?
There are a variety of efforts being made in several states. Kentucky has the most ambitious effort which it expects to be operational by 1996.
Thirty six states currently use mandated or voluntary assessments to measure student performance in writing and nine others have plans to introduce writing assessments in the near future. Twenty one states currently use performance assessment in other subjects and nineteen state are planning to introduce them.
How is performance assessment being implemented and what are the most likely effects on teaching?
Performance assessment is used primarily in reading and writing and is being developed in math and other subjects.
Performance assessment will enable teachers to turn their attention to helping students acquire the capacities for higher order thinking and problem solving skills. Teachers may become more like coaches, focusing more on improving student skills and learning than covering course content for a standardized test.
How do teachers use performance strategies to assess students?
Teachers spend between 20 and 30 percent of their pro-fessional time involved in assessment-related activities.
A promising way of using this time is to encourage teachers to make greater use of performance assessment tasks in their teaching. Some examples are paragraph frames to model organization and reporting skills, scenarios to solve problems, graphs to help students learn how to interpret information and discourse to integrate and communicate knowledge.
When is it appropriate to use performance assessment and when is it appropriate to use standardized multiple-choice tests?
The decision about which to use is determined by the content and quality of the instrument and the use to be made of the results. Performance assessment tasks are more likely to measure complex, higher order knowledge and skills and are less standardized. If comparisons are to be made across districts, a standardized measure is usually selected.
What are the implications of performance assessment for norm-referenced tests?
Although norm-referenced tests will probably be a part of testing well into the future, there is a reasonably good chance that performance assessments will also be implemented. Assessment that is used for accountability or for comparison with other districts has to be feasible to administer, educationally credible, accepted by the public, difficult to challenge legally and affordable to the district. Norm-referenced tests already meet most of these criteria.
How do we aggregate performance assessment data for policy and accountability purposes?
Aggregation refers to the process by which scores of individual students on an assessment measure are combined to represent the performance of groups or subgroups. Scores are usually used for diagnosis, monitoring and placement.
The object of monitoring student achievement is to reduce differences in performance among subgroups over time. Ideally, the gap between the best and worse student performances will continually narrow and the average performance of all student groups in the school district will approach or exceed the average performance of the external reference group.
For that reason, it makes more sense to aggregate scores by classroom and grade level or department than by school to determine whether instructional practices of grade levels, departments or teachers need to be re-examined.
How do we insure that performance assessment data are reliable?
Proponents believe that performance assessments will yield more valid evidence about student learning than standardized tests now in use. Most performance assessment tasks involve activities and products that are directly related to the learning outcomes schools seek to achieve and are the kind of learning tasks that increase student motivation.
The problem with performance assessment is how to make it reliable. Currently it lacks standardization and requires extensive training by graders to maintain consistency, especially for evaluating team tasks. Checklists, scoring guides, standardized grading schemes and an evaluator other than the students' teacher are methods that may standardize results and prevent bias.
Another problem is that some of the equipment and supplies needed to perform assessment tasks are costly, consumable and may malfunction. Performance projects are also time consuming and more difficult to supervise.
What are the implications for local assessment programs, such as end-of-course testing?
Performance assessment changes the perception that tests are based on objective information that needs to be memorized so the teacher can assign a grade. It is an acknowledgement that many important ideas cannot be tested objectively and that students may know more than their test scores show.
How does performance assessment relate to the Outcome Accountability Program (OAP) in Virginia?
Performance assessment can move curriculum toward OAP goals for problem solving and higher order thinking skills. Assessment requires clearly stated and challenging standards of performance to increase agreement of what is expected of students, what is taught and what is assessed in the schools.
How are teachers being trained in performance assessment?
Teachers should possess skills to carry out three types of assessment: construction of paper and pencil tests to measure students' knowledge and thinking, design of assessment to focus on important behavior and products, and proficiency in interacting with individual students in ways that give insight into student learning and achievement.
Colleges and universities are working to develop more appropriate coursework understanding and using assessment information. Administrators and teachers should be trained to implement these new procedures and utilize data collected from alternative assessment methods.
Louise Einolf
Answers to questions found in this research brief have been synthesized from the following MERC publications. Copies can be purchased using the online order form on the publications page.
Seyfarth, J. (1993, May). Performance-based assessment: Questions and Answers.
