CHAPTER 4- NATURE OF

PERFORMANCE BASED
ASSESSMENT
 Overview
Traditional Testing cannot measure a number of skills
directly. Skills requiring the demonstration of student’s
understanding by creating an answer, carrying out
performance, or producing a product which involves
independent judgment, critical thinking and decision-
making are best assessed with performance test. This
type of assessment provides evidence of what the
students know and can do in the context of real life.
 In the previous section, we examined the principles of high
quality assessment integrating basic concepts of assessment
and discussing thoroughly the different types of assessment
being utilized in the teaching and learning process. These
forms of assessing have been very effective in determining
learning outcomes of the students.
Most of the time, the teacher relied on paper-and-pencil
test which measures knowledge and understanding, not the
ability of the learners to actually carryout the performance.
With the implementation of the Outcome-Based Education
• (OBE) across the country, greater emphasis shall be given in
assessing student outcomes through real life (authentic)
which requires students to work and carry on tasks to
perform and do something. Assessment in which students
carry out activities or produce product in demonstrating
their metacognitive knowledge, understanding and skills is
called performance-based assessment.
Meaning and Characteristics:
• Performance-Based Assessment in one in which
the teacher observe and makes a judgment about the
student’s demonstration of a skill or competency in
creating a product constructing a response, or
making a presentation (McMillan, 2007). In this
assessment, the emphasis is on the students’ ability
to perform tasks by producing their own authentic
work with their knowledge and skills.
 Performance-Based Assessment (PBA) is an alternative form of
assessment that moves away from traditional paper-and-pencil
test (Ferman, 2005). It involves students producing a project,
whether it is an oral, written, individual or group performance.
The students are engaged in creating a final project that exhibits
understanding of concepts they have learned.
Performance-based assessments process the creative aspect of
the students in bringing out what they know and what they can
do through different performance taskes such as exhibits projects
and work samples. Hands-on experiences allow them to be more
critical, motivated and involved when they are allowed to perform
on their own.
 Students can acquire and apply knowledge, skills and work
habits through the different performance tasks which are
meaningful and engaging to the students.
Types of activities that best exemplified performance-based
assessments include writing a research report, solving and
conducting experiments and investigations, return
demonstration, speech, skit, role playing, constructing and
implementing seminar plan or creating video presentation.
It is stipulated in the DepEd Order No. 7 s. 2012 that the
highest level of assessment focuses on the performances
(Product) which the students are expected to produce through
authentic performance tasks.
The assessment at this level answer the question,”What
product(s) or performance (s) do we want students to
produce as evidence of their learning or understanding?” or
“How do we want them to provide evidence that they can
transfer their learning to real life situations?”
Moreover, Linn (1995) stated that performance assessments
provide a basis of teachers to evaluate both the effectiveness
of the process or procedure used (e.g.)approach to data
collection, manipulation of instruments) and the product
resulting from performance of a task (e.g. completed report
of results, completed art work).
• Unlike simple tests of factual knowledge, there is unlikely,
to be a single right or best answer. Rather, there may be
multiple performances and problem solutions that may be
judged to be excellent. Problem formulation, the
organization of ideas, the integration of multiple types of
evidence, and originality are all important aspects of
performance that may not be adequately assessed by
paper-and-pencil tests.
Performance products are outputs produced by the
students that provide concrete examples of their
knowledge and understanding of the subject matter.
These performances allow them to demonstrate the
application of what they have learned with their schemata
as well. Students may also engage in some tasks which are
useful not only within the four walls of the
Schools such as devices. Doing field work, demonstrating
rules and guidelines, and engaging into extension services.
Process-oriented assessments provide insights on the
students’ critical thinking, logic and reasoning skills. These
will lead them to independent learning and set goals for
future use.
 Some performance assessment proponents contend that
genuine performance assessment must process at least three
features (Pophasm, 2011).
• Multiple evaluation criteria. The student’s
performance must be judged using more than one
evaluation criterion.
• Pre-specified quality standards. Each of the evaluative
criteria on which a student’s performance is to be
judged is clearly explicated in advance of judging the
quality of the student’s performance.
• Judgmental appraisal. Unlike the scoring of selected-
response tests in which electronic computers and
scanning machines can, once programmed, carry on
without the need of humankind, genuine performance
assessments depend on human judgments to determine
how acceptable a student’s performance really is.
All educational institution expect students to
demonstrate different skills in various learning areas and
most often subjected to classroom performance
assessment.
• Some characteristics of this assessment which can be
observed in the actual classroom setting may include
student performance, creation, construction and
production of product which can assess deep
understanding and reasoning skills. The performance
involves engaging ideas of importance and substance
which students can explain, justify and defend. Lastly,
the performance should be grounded in real-word
contexts which calls for authenticity of the
performance.
2. Types of Performance Tasks
• The main objective of the performance task is to capture
all the learning targets which shall be aligned to the
teaching and learning objective, activities and assessment.
Thus, the focus of performance-based assessment is the
final output that must be developed or completed. These
could be in the form of problem-solving, demonstration,
tasks and other authentic experiences that would
influence the thinking processes, skills and products
required from performance tasks. Below are some
performance-based assessment tasks.
2.1 Solving a problem. Critical thinking and problem
solving are important skills that need to be sharpened and
developed by the learners. Teachers may include activities
and make sense of complex authentic problems or issues to
be solved by the students. This helps the students the
students become independent thinkers and learners for life,
and help them meet the challenges of the 21st century.
2.2 Completing an inquiry. An inquiry tasks is one in which
the students are asked to collect data in order to develop
their understanding about a topic or issue.
 Examples of inquiries include science investigation,
research based activities, survey and interviews or
independent studies. Students determine what data are
needed and under what conditions that data should be
collected, present data and develop conclusions.
2.3. Determining a position. This task require students to
make decision or clarify a position. Case analysis and issue
related activities or debate are some examples of this task.
• 2.4. Demonstration task. This task shows how the
students use knowledge and skills to complete well-
defined complex tasks. Students explain or describe how
something works or how to do something when they
perform these tasks. Examples are: demonstrating steps
or procedures of cooking, explaining the earthquake
safety procedures and demonstrating how to set up
microscope for viewing slides. The focus of
demonstration tasks is accuracy in clarifying the steps of
process as well as careful reasoning concerning the
rationale for each step of the process.
2. 5 Developing Exhibits. Exhibits are visual presentations or
displays that need little or no explanation from the creators.
An exhibit is offered to explain, demonstrated or show
something. Classroom applications include exhibit of best
works, pictures or paintings, projects or even portfolios.
2.6 Presentation Task. This is a work or task performed in
front of an audience. Storytelling, singing and dancing,
musical play or theatrical acting are some presentations which
demonstrate presentations tasks.
• 2.7. Capstone Performances. These tasks that occur at the
end of a program of study and enable students to show
knowledge and skills in the context that matches the world
of practicing professionals. These tasks include research
paper, practice teaching, Internship or on-the-job training.
• With the different types of performance tasks, the teacher
may decide what materials should be used, specifies the
instructions for performance, describes the kinds of
outcomes toward which students should work, tells the
students they are being assessed, and gives students
opportunities to prepare themselves for the assessment.
 Performance tasks on the other hand can be
performed also in a typical and natural setting, which give
students opportunity to perform particular activity which
the teacher would like to assess.
3. Strengths and Limitations
As we explore the nature of performance assessment and
examined the different types of assessment tasks, several
authorities discussed the advantages of performance
assessments over other assessments.
3.1 Performance assessment clearly identifies and clarifies
learning targets. Authentic performance tasks such as real
world challenges and situations can closely match with the
various complex learning targets. This offers a direct way to
closely match with the various complex learning targets. This
offers a direct way to assess what the students know and can do
within the variety of realistic contexts.
3.2 Performance assessment allows students to exhibit their
own skills, talents, and expertise. Tasks show integration of
the student’s skills, knowledge and abilities, provide challenge
and opportunities to exhibit their best creation. This also
assesses the ability “to do” of the students.
3.3. Performance assessment advocates constructivist
principle of Learning. Students are more engaged in active
learning and give more opportunities to demonstrate their
learning in different ways in complex tasks. Students use their
previous knowledge to build a new knowledge structures and
be actively involved in exploration and inquiry through
different tasks.
 3.4. Performance assessment uses a variety of approaches to
student evaluation. This offers students a variety of way of
expressing their learning and increases the validity of student’s
evaluation. Teachers may share criteria of assessment before the
actual evaluation so that students can use this criteria as well.
3.5. Performance assessment allows the teachers to explore
the main goal and processes of teaching and learning process.
Teachers may reflect and revisit learning target, curriculum and
instructional practices, and standards as they utilize
performance-based assessment. They may use a variety of
teaching strategies and techniques, and explore how students
will use the instructional material and resources given to them.
• Though performance assessments offer several advantages over
traditional objective assessment procedures, they have some
distinct limitations as well.
1. Development of high quality performance assessment is a
tedious process.
Performance assessment needs careful planning and
implementation. It is very time consuming to construct good
tasks. Teachers have to make sure that the performance tasks
expected from the students are authentic and match the
outcome to be assessed and not with other qualities that are not
part of the outcomes to be assessed. Quality scoring rubrics are
difficult to create as well.
 •2. Performance assessment requires a considerable
amount of time to administer. Paper and Pencil takes 15 to 20
minutes per tasks to complete depending on the number of
items. Most authentic tasks take a number of days to complete.
Most of the time, performance assessment is administered to
small groups of students unlike traditional testing which is
simultaneously administered to an entire class.
•3. Performance assessment takes a great deal of time to
score. The more complex the process and performance, the
more time you can expect to spend on scoring. To reduce the
scoring time, crafting a high quality rubrics is recommended.
4. Performance task score may have lower reliability. This
resulted to inconsistency of scoring by teachers who
interpret observation quite differently. With complex tasks,
multiple correct answers, and fast-paced performances,
scoring depends on teaching own scoring competence.
5. Performance task completion may be discouraging to less
able students. Some tasks that require students to sustain
their interest for a longer time may discourage
disadvantaged students. They may have partial knowledge
of the learning target but may fail to complete the task
because it does not allow them to utilize this partial
knowledge effectively and efficiently.
 A summary of strengths and weaknesses of
performance assessment is presented below:
Strengths Weaknesses
Integrates assessment with Reliability may be difficult to
instruction. establish.
Learning occurs during assessment. Measurement error due to subjective
nature of scoring may be significant.
Provides opportunities for formative Inconsistent student performance
assessment. across time may result in inaccurate
conclusions.
Tends to be more authentic than Few samples of student achievement.
other types of
Assessments.
More engaging; active involvement of Requires considerable teacher time to
students. complete.
Provides additional way for students Difficult to plan for amount of time
• Cont. of
WEAKNESSES:

Forces teachers to establish specific criteria to

identify successful performance.
Encourages students assessments.Emphasis on
application of knowledge.
Encourages re-examination of instructional goals
and the purpose of schooling.