Lesson 3: Performance Assessment

How do you assess students learning outcomes using various types of performance
assessment tools
UNDERSTAND
Desired Significant Learning Outcomes:
In this lesson, you are expected to:

 Design appropriate performance assessment tools for intended student learning outcomes.

Significant Culminating Performance Task and Success Indicators

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to demonstrate your knowledge and skills in
developing performance assessment tools that are most applicable to a particular student
outcome. You are considered successful in this culminating performance task if you have
satisfied the following indicators of success:
Performance Tasks Success Indicators
Knowing the various types of performance Identify the appropriate performance
assessment tolls assessment tool for a specific performance or
product.
Designing performance assessment tools Create a performance assessment toll that is
aligned with the desired learning outcomes
(DLO) and the teaching and learning activities
(TLAs)

Prerequisite of this Lesson

To be able to perform successfully the above culminating performance tasks, you should
have distinguished between traditional and performance assessments, understood the processes
in setting learning objectives and student outcomes and in preparing the table of specifications,
identified the different types of performance assessment tasks, and learned the guidelines in
designing performance assessment tools.

PREPARE
To be able to learn or enhance your skills on how to develop good and effective
performance assessment tools, review your prior knowledge on the differences between
traditional and alternative assessment and how and when you choose a particular assessment
method most appropriate to the identified learning objectives and desired learning outcomes of
your course.
What is performance assessment?
performance assessment is an assessment activity or set of activities that require students
to generate products or performances that provide direct or indirect evidence of their
knowledge, skills, and abilities in an academic content domain. It provides teachers with
information about how well a student understands and applies knowledge and goes beyond the
ability to recall information. It is used for assessing learning outcomes that involve designing or
creating projects or products such as research papers, art exhibits, reflective essays, and
portfolios. On the other hand, performance-based task includes actual performances of making
those products, such as carrying laboratory experiments, exhibiting creative and artistic talents,
such as dancing painting, and playing musical instruments, and demonstrating writing skills.
Through extemporaneous essay writing, article review, and reflective papers. Both product-based
and performance-based assessments provide information about how a student understands and
applies knowledge and involve hands-on tasks or activities that students must complete
individually or in small groups. Below are examples of product-based and performance-based
assessments.
Types Examples
A. Products-Based Assessment
Visual Products Charts, illustrations, graphs, collages, murals,
maps, timeline flows, diagrams, posters,
advertisements, video presentation, art
exhibits.
Kinesthetic Products Diorama, puzzles, games, sculpture, exhibits,
dance recitals.
Written Products Journals, diaries, logs, reports, abstracts,
letters, thought or position papers, poems,
story movie/TV scripts, portfolio, essay,
article report, research paper, thesis
Verbal Products Audiotapes, debates, lectures, voice
recording, scripts
B. Performance-Based Assessment
Oral Presentation/Demonstrations Paper presentation, poster presentation,
individual or group report on assigned topic,
skills demonstration such as baking, teaching
problem-solving.
Dramatic/Creative Performances Dance, recitals, dramatic enactment, prose or
poetry interpretation, role playing, playing
musical instruments
Public Speaking Debates, mock trial, simulations, interviews,
panel discussion, story-telling, poem reading
Athletic Skills Demonstration/Competition Playing basketball, baseball, soccer,
volleyball, and other sports
 Similar to performance assessment is the concept of authentic assessment. authentic
assessment requires student to actually demonstrate their skills in applying skills and knowledge
they have learned from class. It involves tasks that resemble what people do in the real setting or
context, such as doing actual research, making a case study, giving a speech, or performing on a
stage.
What are the characteristics of a good performance assessment?
With so many different types of performance assessment tasks or tools that can be used to
measure students learning outcomes, deciding which one to use can be confusing and
challenging. In choosing and designing the best performance assessment, it is good to evaluate
its suitability against the following criteria:
1. It is authentic, that is, it includes performance tasks that are meaningful and realistic.
Performance assessments should present or require tasks that are realistic and
related to everyday life. As it involves an authentic task, it should convey its purpose and
reflect its relevance to the students, their discipline, and the outside world as a whole. For
example, in an entrepreneurial class wherein one of the learning outcomes is the ability to
develop a business plan, instead of giving final exams to test students’ knowledge of
concepts, principles, and processes of developing a business plan, the students will be
required to submit a proposed business plan for putting up a new investment. This
performance task entails students to identify the market needs and gaps, plan out the
marketing mix (7Ps) and the 4Ms of operations, and forecast the costs and revenues of the
business. This task allows students to have hands-on experience in performing a task that
is done in the actual world.
2. It provides opportunities for students to show both what they know and how well they can
do what they know.
Performance assessment should achieve a balanced approach wherein it gives
students opportunities to show their knowledge-and-skill competencies. Since the main
goal of teaching and learning is for students’ acquisition and application of knowledge
and skills, course assessment should therefore help answer the questions “do the students
know it?” and “How well can they use what they know” to determine whether the
students have actually achieved this goal. For example, in Practical Research 2 class, the
teacher may require output at the end of the course, since this performance task will not
only inform the teacher whether the students learned the different parts of a research
paper but also whether the students can conceptualize a good research paper, conduct
review of related literature, apply appropriate data gathering procedure and analysis, and
make valid interpretations and implications of the results. The main challenge is for the
teachers to choose performance tasks that can measure both the competencies of
“knowing” and “applying” and at most “creating”.
3. It allows students to be involved in the process of evaluating their own and their peers’
performance and output.
 Performance assessment should allow students to be involved in the process of
evaluating themselves and their peers. It should give students the opportunity for self-
reflection or self-assessment, as well as to be involved in evaluating their classmate’s
performance. self-assessment allows students to make judgment about their learning
process and products of learning, track their progress, and identify the areas where to
focus or improve on. Peer assessment, on the other hand, allows students to give
constructive feedback about the performance of their classmates or groupmates, which
the latter can user to revise or improve their work. Both assessments require that scoring
or grading is based on the criteria agreed upon by the teacher and the students. The use of
a rubric can facilitate self-assessment and peer assessment.
4. It assesses more complex skills.
Unlike traditional test that usually assesses a high skill and require simple task
such as remembering or recalling of concepts, performance assessment usually taps
higher-order cognitive skills to apply knowledge to solve realistic and meaningful
problems. As such, performance assessment allows students to engage in more
challenging activities that require various skills, such as planning and decision making,
problem-solving, critical thinking, communication, and creative skills, among others. For
example, instead of giving final exams to assess student’s learning in marketing class, the
teacher may require the students to conduct a marketing and market research, come up
with a marketing strategy, and/or conduct a marketing for a product of their choice. These
performances task not only assess student’s knowledge of principles and processes in
marketing but also trap their creativity. planning skills, collaborative skills,
communication skills, and research skills.
5. It explains the task, required elements, and scoring criteria to the students before the
start of the activity and assessment.
At the start of the class, it is important that the requirements of the subject are
presented and explained to the students. Theses include the required tasks, activities or
projects, the expected quality and level performance or output the criteria to be included
for assessment, and the rubric to be used. Ideally, students should be involved in the
whole assessment process from the very onset, by providing them assessment options,
getting involved in discussions and decision making on performance standards and
criteria allowing them opportunity to give feedback on the teacher-made rubrics and to
revise them, and training them on how to apply rubric for self-and-peer assessment.
What the general guidelines in designing performance assessment?
The learning outcomes at the end of the course serve as the bases in designing the
performance assessment tasks. With the learning outcomes identified, the evidence of student
learning that are the most relevant for each learning outcome and the standard or criteria that will
be used to evaluate those evidence are then identified. To guide you in designing performance
assessment, following questions may be addressed:
1. What are the outcomes to be assessed?
 2. What are the capabilities/skills implicit or explicit in the expected outcomes (e.g.
problem-solving, decision-making, critical thinking, communication skills)?
3. What are the appropriate performance assessment task or tools to measure the
outcomes skills?
4. Are the specific performance task aligned with the outcomes and skills interesting,
engaging, challenging and measurable?
5. Are the performance task authentic and representative of the real world scenarios?
6. What criteria should be included to rate student’s performance level?
7. What are the specific performance indicators for each criterion?
Furthermore, the choice of teaching and learning activities is also utmost importance in
choosing the performance assessment to use. There should be also an alignment among the
learning outcomes, the learning activities and assessment tasks, for example, in a physical
education-dance class, the following three-course components should be explicitly clear and
linked, as shown below:
Intended Learning Teaching-Learning Performance Assessment
Outcomes Activities Tasks
At the end of the course, the
students should be able to:
 Perform dance Lecture, class, discussion, Culminating dance class
routines and creatively movement exercises, dance recitals, practical test for each
combine variations demonstration, actual dancing type of dance, reflection
with rhythm, with teachers and partners, papers, peer evaluation rating
coordination, correct collaborative learning
footwork technique,
frame, facial and body
expression.
 Participate in dance Required attendance and Actual dance performance in
socials and other participation in school and school or community
community fitness community dance programs, reaction/reflection
advocacy projects. performances papers

How do you conduct performance assessment?

Unlike in most traditional tests wherein student responses can be scored using an answer
key, performance assessment requires the teachers and peers’ judgment when evaluating the
resulting products and performances. This necessitates using a set of predetermined criteria that
are aligned with desired targeted standards or desired learning outcomes.
The following are the basic steps in planning and implementing performance-based or
product-based assessments:
1. Define the purpose of performance or product-based assessment. The teacher may
ask the following questions?
- what concept, skill, or knowledge of the students should be assessed?
 - At what level should the students be performing?
- What type of knowledge is being assessed (e.g., remembering to create)?
2. Choose the activity/output that you will assess. the required performance or output
should be feasible given the time constraints, availability of resources, and amount of
data/materials needed to make an informed decision about the quality of a student’s
performance or product. The performance tasks should be interesting, challenging,
achievable, and with sufficient depth and breadth so that valid evaluation about students
learning can be made.
3. Define the criteria. Criteria are guidelines or rules for judging student responses,
product, or performances. Before conducting the assessment, the performance criteria
should be predetermined. The set of criteria should be discussed and agreed upon by the
teacher and the students. Performance criteria are important since they define for the
students the types of behavior or attributes of a product that are expected, as well as allow
the teacher and the students to evaluate a performance or product as objectively and as
consistent as possible. There are four types of criteria that can be used for evaluating
student performances:
A. Content criteria – to evaluate the degree of a student’s knowledge and understanding
of facts, concepts, and principles related to the topic/subject;
B. Process criteria – to evaluate the proficiency level of performance of a skill or
process;
C. Quality criteria – to evaluate the quality of a product or performance; and
D. Impact criteria – to evaluate the overall results or effects of a product or performance.
4. Create the performance rubric. A rubric is an assessment tool that indicates the
performance expectations for any kind of student work. It generally contains three
essential features: (1) criteria or aspects of performance that will be assessed, (2)
performance descriptors or the characteristics associated with each dimension or
criterion, and (3) performance levels that identifies students level of mastery within each
criterio. There are different types of rubrics:
A. Holistic rubric – in holistic rubric, student performance or output is evaluated by
applying all criteria simultaneously, thus providing a single score based on overall
judgment about the quality of students work
B. Analytic rubric – in analytic rubric, students work is evaluated by using each criterion
separately, thus providing specific feedback about the students performance or
product along several dimensions.
C. General rubric – contains criteria that are general and can be applied across tasks
(e.g., the same rubric that can be used to evaluate oral presentation and research
output)
D. Task-specific rubric – contains criteria that are unique to a specific task (i.e., a rubric
that can only be used for oral presentation and another rubric applicable only for
research output.
For a more detailed discussion on the types of rubric and the steps in developing a rubric,
please refer to Lesson 6: Process in Developing and using rubrics for alternative
assessment.
 5. Assess student’s performance/product, in assessing a student's work, it is important to
adhere to the criteria set and use the rubric developed. This is to ensure the objective,
consistent, and accurate evaluation of student’s performance. It also important to provide
specific and meaningful feedback and explanation to students on how they have
performed the task, clarifying to them what they understand, what they don’t understand,
where they can improve.

Develop
Let us review what you learned about designing performance assessment task.
1. What are the types of performance assessments?
2. What are the characteristics of a performance assessment?
3. what are the general guidelines in designing a performance assessment?
4. What are the basic steps in conducting a performance-based or product-based
assessment?
To be able check whether you have learned the important information about identifying
and designing performance assessment, please complete the following graphical
representation.

Performance
Assessment

What are When to What is a How to How to

the types? use? good create? conduct?
performance
assessment?

APPLY

By now, you should be ready to design effective performance assessments to assess your
student learning outcomes. Let us apply what you have learned by creating an assessment plan
for the subjects that you are currently teaching. For each subject, list down the desired learning
outcomes and course topic for each desired learning outcome and identify the appropriate
performance tasks to assess students’ achievement of the expected outcome. It is important that
you have an assessment plan for each subject that you teach.

Example of a Performance Assessment Plan

Subject: General Chemistry Laboratory 1

Overall Desired Learning Outcomes: At the end of the course, the students are
expected to execute procedural tasks in laboratory experiments and to apply proper waste
disposal procedures.

Desired Learning Types of Performance

Outcomes
Design simple experiments to
test hypotheses
Properly use and handle
equipment and chemicals
Practice good laboratory
skills and techniques
Practice
teamwork/collaborative skills
Apply concepts, theories and
ideas learned in a “real-
world” setting
Course Topic
All topics with experiments
All topics with experiments
All topics with experiments
All topics with experiments
End of the course
Tasks
Oral presentation of
experiment plans/protocol,
pre-lab exercises, oral
presentation of experiment
results
Actual laboratory
performance
Actual laboratory
performance
Peer evaluation through
rubric
Projects, products

Use the following template to come up with your performance assessment plan.
Subject:

Overall desired learning outcomes:

Desired learning outcomes Course topic Types performance tasks

TRANSFER

By now, you are equipped to construct a sample performance assessment for the subject.
In the development of the performance assessment, you need the following information:

1. Desired learning outcomes for subject area

2. Level of cognitive/thinking skills appropriate to assess the desired learning outcomes.
3. Specific activity or output to assess (i.e., performance task)
4. Appropriate types of performance assessment to use.
5. Criteria for evaluating students’ performance.
6. Type of rubric to use.

EVALUATE

Evaluate the performance assessment that you have developed by using the following
checklist.

Checklist for Designing Performance Assessment

Yes No
1. Is the performance task authentic (i.e., it presents meaningful and
realistic conditions)
2. Is it aligned with desired learning outcomes?
 3. Does it provide opportunities for students to show both what they know
and how well they can do what they know?
4. Does it tap higher-order cognitive skills and the ability to apply
knowledge?
5. Does it allow students to engage in more challenging activities that
demonstrate a broader array of skills
6. Is it feasible to implement

7. Is it observable and measurable

REFLECT

1. Examine the performance assessments task that you have chosen for your course. Are
they the most appropriate for the desired learning outcomes?
2. Do they need major revisions? If yes, in which aspect?

Test your understanding about constructing performance assessment.

Answer the following items:

1. Mr. Trinidad has been advocating the use of performance-based assessment in his science
class. What type of performance assessment is he most likely to use to grade his students
on their knowledge of the ecosystem?
A. Multiple choice on the different types of ecosystems.
B. True or False on the roles of organisms in the ecosystem.
C. Essay on the different types of ecosystems
D. Ecosystem Diorama with explanation
2. Which of the following requirements in a Chemistry laboratory subject is best assessed
using performance assessment?
A. Laboratory experiment report
B. Conduct of an experiment
C. Midterm exams
D. Peer or groupmate evaluation
3. Which of the following is best example of a performance assessment of a product or
output in an English class?
A. Debate
B. Extemporaneous speech
C. Oral presentation
D. Research paper
4. What type of performance task is best to demonstrate students problem-solving skill in
math subject among primary school students?
A. Multiple-choice test
B. Oral presentation
C. Quiz bee contest
D. Essay
5. Your teacher in Digital Literacy subject asks your class to help her revise and finalize the
proposed rubrics that she will use to assess the student's competency in using computers.
5.1. What kinds of performance assessment are the most appropriate to use for this
this class? What type of rubric to use?

Performance Assessment Rubric

5.2. What characteristics will you look for to say that the proposed rubric is a good
and effective performance assessment tool?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
5.3. What criteria can be included for judging the students’ performances or
outcomes? Please give me your reasons for your answers.
 _____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

SUSTAIN

Evaluate the level of your skills in identifying and designing performance assessment
using the following scale:

Level Performance Benchmark

Proficient (4) I know this very well. I can teach others how to make one.
Master (3) I can do it by myself. However, I sometimes make mistakes.
Developing (2) I am getting there. I still need help to be able to perfect it.
Novice (1) I cannot do it myself. I need to help to make a good/effective test.

Bashed on your self-assessment above, choose the following tasks to help you enhance
your skills and competencies in designing performance assessment task:

Level Possible Tasks

Proficient I know them well. I can help or mentor others who are having difficulty in
identifying and designing performance assessment
Master I can it by myself. However, I may need to consult my peers or experts if I
have some concerns or difficulties
Developing I am getting there. However, I still need help from peers or experts to
improve my skills
Novice I cannot do it myself. I need help to make an effective performance
assessment tool.

Educators Input
 Mr. Remoto is teaching Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics in one Senior High
School in Metro Manila. The course uses the disciplines of Anthropology, Sociology, and
Political Science to develop students’ knowledge of cultural, social, and political dynamics, and
sensitivity to cultural diversity and to provide them with an understanding of how culture, human
agency, society, and politics work. To assess students learning in his course, he required written
works, performance tasks, and final exam. This is what he shares about the classroom assessment
he used:

“I give written exams in this subject which comprise 30% of the

final grade. Part of the written exams are seatwork/ assignments and
long quizzes. The biggest chink of the students’ final grade comes
from the performance tasks, which comprise 40% of their final grade.
Among the performance tasks that I require include class
participation, group reporting, and research paper. The last 30% of the
final grade is based on culminating project, which is an advocacy
campaign, which aims to create awareness of a specific social issue in
the Philippine Society. I require the students to conduct a research
about the topic and to make use of digital poster slogan, infographic,
infomercial video, music video or short film as a medium to send the
message across to their audience. A rubric was developed and is used
in rating in this culminating project. There are also other rubrics that I
use for other requirements of this subject, such as rubric for individual
class participation, group report, and research paper.”

Other Support Materials Available

For further information about performance assessment, you may refer to the following
materials:

1. PowerPoint Presentation on the Guidelines in Developing Performance Assessment Tools

2. Palm, T. (2008). Performance assessment and authentic assessment: A conceptual
analysis of the literature. Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation, 13(4).
Retrieved from http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v13&n=4.
Portfolio Assessment

Directions: Choose one (1) output in this lesson that can best show your ability in the 21st
century learning and innovation skills: critical thinking, creative thinking, communication,
collaboration, knowledge of your content (5Cs)

What output/s in this

lesson shows you are
Chosen Output Why?
very good in the
following
1. Content (the output Example: Constructed Table Because it reflects the
reflects understanding of Specification framework of the test, which
of the topic discussed) is the Revised Bloom’s
Taxonomy where the six
cognitive processes are given
as well as the four
dimensions of knowledge.
2. Critical Thinking
(the output reflects
ability to
critique/evaluate/
solve problems)
3. Creative Thinking
 (the output reflects
ability to create new
ideas)
4. Communication (the
output reflects ability
to express ones ideas
in words or actions)
5. Collaboration (the
output reflects ability
to work well with
others)