Why performance based assessment is an important feature of the teaching and learning process?

1. Career development
2. What Is a Performance Assessment? (Definition and Tips Included)

By Indeed Editorial Team

Published July 7, 2021

The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed's data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.

Performance assessments are a useful tool for evaluating a student's understanding of a subject and if they're able to apply their knowledge in specific situations. Educators use performance assessments often to identify the best methods for teaching students and assisting them throughout their learning process in a course. In this article, we review what performance assessments are, why educators use them, how to use them effectively and give helpful tips on creating performance assessments.

What is a performance assessment?

A performance assessment involves applying and showing skills and knowledge through various performance tasks. The purpose of a performance assessment is to improve the student learning experience and evaluate the effectiveness of lesson plans. These assessments measure how well a student can apply the knowledge they've learned, not if they can recall the knowledge. Performance assessments often use the following components:

• Developmental checklists

• Portfolios of student work

• Progress reports

Related: Everything You Need To Know About Assessments: Types and FAQs

Why are performance assessments important?

Assessments can help educators identify if students are making progress and what adjustments to make to the class curriculum to ensure students are successful in their education. Performance assessments are also very helpful while evaluating the effectiveness of course lesson plans. A teacher may decide to use a diagnostic performance assessment prior to starting a new lesson to gain perspective on students' current level of knowledge of a topic and give the assessment once more at the end of the lesson to understand if the activities throughout the course were helpful to the students.

Related: 18 Student Skills for Effective Learning

How are performance assessments used?

Educators use performance assessments to identify if students have knowledge of a subject or are gaining knowledge in a subject throughout the year. Educators can administer a performance assessment at any point, though they often use them at the beginning and end of the course. A performance assessment often asks students to use problem-solving skills or critical thinking to produce a report, experiment or give a performance that displays their ability to apply what they have learned.

Criteria for creating performance assessments

While building a performance assessment, here are some criteria you can include:

• Use relatable communication and situations

• Incorporate multiple stages of completion of a performance task and problems that use creative thinking

• Ask students to produce a product, report, experiment or performance

• Involve interaction between instructor and self

• Allow for self-evaluation

• Make testing standards and expectations obvious to the student

• Administer assessments regularly in classroom settings to monitor implementing performance assessments

• An explanation of why the assessment is being used and how you will evaluate it

Why are performance assessments used?

Here is a list of reasons an educator may decide to use a performance assessment:

• Performance assessments can engage and pique the interest of students.

• Performance assessments can be accurate indicators of what students know and whether they can use their knowledge.

• Performance assessments can increase instructor confidence by allowing them to evaluate lesson plan effectiveness.

• Performance assessment tasks can identify how well an instructor is teaching and provide progress reports for student learning.

Are performance assessments graded?

Performance assessments do not always provide a student with a grade after taking them. Some educators may use performance assessments to develop conclusions regarding course curriculum, lesson plans or the pace at which students learn so specific numbers or grades may not be useful while reviewing assessment results. If you plan to grade a student assessment, the students can explore what criteria they need to meet in order to achieve a successful grade or score on the assessment.

Tips to conduct a performance assessment

Prior to conducting a performance assessment, consider reviewing the following tips:

Identify learning goals

To develop a successful performance assessment, it's important to have clear and concise learning objectives or goals. Identifying these goals can assist you with understanding what methods of measurement to use while evaluating assessments, give students the confidence of knowing what to expect throughout their assessment and help with adjusting any lesson plans after reviewing assessment results. Learning goals can also help students create a clear vision of what they should know by the end of the course.

Related: 10 Educational Goal Examples

Encourage self-evaluation

One of the best ways to know if a student feels the benefits of a lesson plan or information presented during the course is by allowing them to evaluate and reflect on their own performance throughout the course. This can give an instructor a true perspective on the effectiveness of their teachings. This also allows students to give suggestions on how to improve course learning processes for the future and potentially develop teaching strategies.

Related: Performance Review Self-Assessment Examples

Choose an engaging activity

It's essential for a performance assessment to engage students and keep their attention. Developing meaningful questions and critical thinking activities can help motivate a student to use their maximum potential while completing a performance assessment. Using relatable situations in questions or creating unique visuals to help a student understand the questions being asked can also help a student feel more engaged with the content.

Develop criteria for the rubric

The most important factor of a performance assessment is the criteria or rubric. A rubric should provide clarity for the students to understand what the performance assessment is testing for, how to complete a performance assessment and how to get a specific grade or score. This can also help an instructor evaluate if the criteria actually measure student performance because the student should be able to use the information from the rubric to create an experiment or a report to show that they can properly apply the knowledge they gained from the course.

What types of performance assessments are there?

There are many types of performance assessments since they can be helpful for educators who teach different subjects. Some common types of performance assessments include:

• Standardized assessments or norm-referenced: Assessments that use a basic threshold to understand student knowledge and provides a grade or score as an assessment result. Examples include the ACT, SAT, AP examinations and IQ examinations.

• Interim assessments: Assessments that are administered multiple times in a school year. They use benchmarks throughout the school year to identify the success of lesson plans. Instructors typically take this time to revise course materials and instructions.

• Summative: Educators use this type of assessment to evaluate student knowledge after completing a course. Educators may give this assessment at the end of the semester to understand if the coursework helped a student apply their knowledge during an assessment. Based on the results, a teacher may revise, rework and develop new lesson plans and teaching strategies for the following semester.

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