Performance Assessment

In this chapter, we look at how to communicate performance expectations and then discuss the types of
assessment situations in which direct assessment might be better than indirect indicators of work. Like
from the mythical kingdom story of the king we must grade student differently not just by paper and
pen. We also look at ways to evaluate performance to ensure that one is measuring the important
aspects of it in a consistent way. Finally, we address the topic of evaluating group versus individual work
performance. Many times, even myself included just place students in group and judge them as a whole
when something that might not be the best option.

The terms performance assessment, alternative assessment, and portfolio assessment are often used
interchangeably, but have slightly different meanings (Carl & Rosen, 1992; Pierce & O’Malley, 1992;
Stiggins, 1987; Tierney, Carter, & Desai, 1991). If we take a closer look at each, Alternative Assessment Is
authentic because it is based on activities that represent actual progress toward instructional goals and
reflect tasks typical of classrooms and real-life settings. Alternative Assessment, is a type of alternative
assessment, Is an exercise in which a student demonstrates specific skills and competencies in relation
to a continuum of agreed upon standards of proficiency or excellence. And lastly, portfolio assessment,
Is the use of records of a student’s work over time and in a variety of modes to show the depth, breadth,
and development of the student’s abilities. After looking at all these assessment from a different
perspective. If you notice something performance assessment fall under alternative assessment and at
the beginning, we state that we can use them interchangeable but they are very much different. So, the
term alternative assessment implies the application of something second best. However, that is not the
case; alternative assessments are more authentic than traditional (paper and-pencil) assessments, and
their results have a greater likelihood of being valid if the assessments are implemented in a reliable
fashion. However, the potential validity comes at a cost as these tests usually take more time, resources,
and labor than traditional tests. So, this bring us to a question that ask is it the tradition way of paper
and pen more effective than performance assessment because they are time consuming, resources, and
labor than traditional tests. Portfolios, on the other hand, are collections of student work and
performance already done. They might consist of term papers, photographs, essays on personal feelings,
newspaper articles, and so on.

The need for authentic assessments is always an important consideration, but which of the alternative
assessments is best for your purposes depends on what can be accomplished by each. The reading give
a perfect analogy of this; Simulating a frog dissection on the computer may demonstrate that the
student has mastered the organ anatomy of the amphibian, However, dissecting a frog in a laboratory
setting would be virtually a perfect indicator of the ability to dissect a frog in a corporate biological
setting. As you can see, there is a real difference between knowing and doing—an important
consideration in determining how you will evaluate student performance.

We can conclude by saying assessment is aided and abetted by a variety of measures, not the least of
which are performance measures, which make useful supplements to the familiar standardized tests,
the objective tests, and the essay (or subjective) tests. The category of performance assessments
includes authentic assessments, portfolios, simulations, and demonstrations, all of which have
similarities, in varying degrees, to real-life activities (balancing a checkbook in class requires the same
operations as in real life) or problems (such as judging which of two cereals is more nutritious). Some,
such as dress rehearsals for plays, are so similar to the onstage performances that they become proxies
for judging what the first public performance would look like. Others, such as setting up laboratory
equipment or simulated jury duty, are mini-replicas of the actual settings used in real-life performances.
Writing a business letter in the ninth grade will likely have most of the characteristics of a business letter
in real life. The advantage of performance assessments is that they require not only use the abstract
knowledge about a subject-matter area (e.g., knowing how to add, subtract, multiply, or divide) but also
provide some contact with everyday situations in which that subject matter is used.