ArtsWork - Performance Assessment

Performance
	Observations & Checklist Portfolios & Essays Rubrics Rating Scales
Forced Answer Testing
	Multiple Choice True-false Matching Completion
Discipline Examples
	Music Theater I Theater II Visual Arts I Visual Arts II Visual Arts III
Resources
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Teachers > Assessment > Performance Assessment

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Performance assessments measure "authentic performance," a student doing an actual task--writing a critical essay or a play, performing a piece of music, choreographing a dance, or creating a painting.

Typically there are 3 steps to performance assessment.
1) gathering information through:

observation including: anecdotes and checklists
portfolios and journals, essays, qualitative questions, interviews, and case studies
CDs and web sites to store performances and portfolios

2) creating rubrics, rating instruments that describe different levels (quality) of performance

Rubrics are excellent assessment tools. They can help teachers clarify their teaching goals and strategies. They make assessing student work quick and efficient and help teachers justify to parents and others the grades they assign to students. Rubrics, at their very best, are teaching tools that support student learning and encourage the development of sophisticated thinking skills. Rubrics can be used to guide self- and peer assessment and can increase students' sense of responsibility for their own work. Teachers and students together should create the rubrics for an assignment.

3) communicating about the performance with the students and their

oral critiques
rating scales
written comments

The strength of this approach to testing is that it focuses directly on complex performances and the knowledge and skills required to accomplish them. Disadvantages of performance assessments are that they are susceptible to subjectivity in gathering the information and in scoring the student work; scoring can be difficult and costly; performances, essays, and written response require more classroom time than the forced-answer tests.

Time and assessment

"There is no one key place or correct format for reflection. It's not always at the end; it's not always in progress; it's not always when everyone is at the same point. It's just an ongoing part of the [teaching/learning] process. It's not one set way. It continues to float in and out and it's all along. It overlaps and it layers. It's an environment; it's a different kind of environment."
Barbara Albig, South Vocational-Technical High School, Pittsburgh

1. Not every performance needs to be assessed formally. Feedback can be given verbally and informally as students work in small groups or as the teacher leads a class discussion.

2. Keep assessment criteria boiled down to just those few items that you really care about (the ones stated in the "understanding" goals). This not only makes the grading and feedback process easier for you but also ensures that students will spend their time and energy well.

3. Take time to teach your students how to talk with one another about assessment. If everyone understands the criteria for a performance and has had practice providing supportive critiques, then students can coach and provide feedback for one another, even though you are the one who ultimately gives the grade. [C. Eric Bondy and Bill Kendall. "Ongoing Assessment," THE TEACHING FOR UNDERSTANDING GUIDE. (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 1998) pp. 86-87.]


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