Performance-based assessment: A quality improvement strategy

Abstract

This paper presents a performance-based view of assessment design with a focus on why we need to build tests that are mindful of standards and content outlines and on what such standards and outlines require. Designing assessment for meaningful educational feedback is a difficult task. The assessment designer must meet the requirements of content standards, the standards for evaluation instrument design, and the societal and institutional expectations of schooling. At the same time, the designer must create challenges that are intellectually interesting and educationally valuable. To improve student assessment, we need to design standards that are not only clearer, but also backed by a more explicit review system. To meet the whole range of student needs and to begin fulfilling the educational purposes of assessment, we need to rethink not only the way we design, but also the way we supervise the process, usage, and reporting of assessments. This paper outlines how assessment design is parallel to student performance and illustrates how this is accomplished through intelligent trial and error, using feedback to make incremental progress toward design standards.

Citation

Harnisch, D.L. (2001), "Performance-based assessment: A quality improvement strategy", Benson, A.P., Michelle Hinn, D. and Lloyd, C. (Ed.) Vision of Quality: How Evaluators Define, Understand and Represent Program Quality (Advances in Program Evaluation, Vol. 7), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 253-269. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-7863(01)80076-4