PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT

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 tasks include
actual performances of making those products, such as carrying out laboratory experiments, exhibiting
creative and artistic talents, such as dancing, painting, and playing a musical instrument, and
demonstrating writing skills through extemporaneous essay writing, article review, and reflective papers.
It requires the students to demonstrate or apply their knowledge, skills, and strategies by creating a
response or product or doing a task. Product-based assessment is an evaluation method that focuses on the
final outcome or product created by students as a measure of their learning. 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. Product-Based Assessment Visual charts, illustrations, graphs, collages, murals, maps,
Products timeline flows, diagrams, posters, advertisements, video
presentations, art exhibits
Kinesthetic Products diorama, puzzles, games, sculpture, exhibits, dance recital
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 Presentations/ Demonstrations paper presentation, poster presentation, individual or group
report on assigned topic, skills demonstration such as
baking. teaching, problem solving
Dramatic/ Creative Performance dance, recital, dramatic enactment, prose or poetry
interpretation, role playing, playing musical instruments
Public Speaking debates, mock trial, simulations, interviews, panel
discussion, storytelling, poem reading
Athletic Skills Demonstration/ Competition playing basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, and other
sports
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 assessment 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 entrepreneur 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 a pitting 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 assessments 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 a Practical
Research 2 class, the teacher may require research 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.

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 classmates' 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 use
to revise or improve their work. Both assessments require that scoring or grading is b'ased 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 tests that usually assess a single skill and require simple tasks 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 students' learning in a marketing class, the teacher
may require the students to conduct a marketing and market research, come up with a marketing strategy,
and/or conduct an actual marketing for a product of their choice. These performance tasks not only assess
students' knowledge of principles and processes in marketing but also tap 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 the assessment.

At the start of the class, it is important that the requirements of the subject are presented and
explained to the students. These 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 them involved in discussions and decision-making on performance standards
and criteria, allowing them opportunity to give feedback on teacher-made rubrics. and to revise them, and
training them on how to apply rubric for self- and peer-assessment.

Conducting Performance Assessment

Unlike in most traditional tests wherein student responses, can be scored using'an answer key,
performance assessments require the teacher's 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 number 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, products, 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.

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 the
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 criterion.

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 objective, consistent, and accurate evaluation of
student's performance. It is also important to provide specific and meaningful feedback and explanation to
students on how they have performed the tasks, clarifying to them what they understand, what they don't
understand, and where they can improve.

References:

Bennet, R. E. (2011). “Formative assessment: a critical review”. Assessment in Education: Principles,

Policy & Practice 18(1):5-25

Gelborion, L. (2007). Product-Based Assessment. Open Educational Resources. Retrieved from

https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/105089/overview#:~:text=Overview,skills%20to%20produce
%20tangible%20results.

Navarro, RL & Santos, R.G (2017). Assessment of Learning Outcomes 2 (3rd ed). Lonimar Publishing,
Inc.

Pappas, C. (2023, June 22). What Is Performance-Based Assessment? eLearning Industry. Retrieved from
https://elearningindustry.com/what-is-performance-based-assessment#:~:text=Performance-
based%20assessment%20is%20an%20evaluation%20approach%20that%20focuses,real%20world%2C%
20instead%20of%20solely%20testing%20knowledge%20acquisition.

Ubina-Balagtas, M., David A., Golla, E., Magno, C., Valladolid, V. (2020). Assessment in earning 2 (1st
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