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1. 7 Keys to Effective Feedback
2. Authentic Assessment Toolbox
3. Creating Summative Assessments
4. Visible Thinking Routines
5. 56 Ways to gather Formative Assessments

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Image Credits

Student giving presentation to class

Gareth Brown / Cultura / Getty Images

Used under Getty Images license

A summative assessment takes place at the end of a unit or course of study. It assesses students' level of knowledge, skill acquisition, and/or content understanding. There are many purposes to summative assessments in instruction, but the main goal of any assessment is to provide clear communication between student and teacher.

Elements of Effective Summative Assessments

Not all summative assessments are created equal. Some types of summative assessments can tell a teacher much more than a standard test. The best practices for writing effective summative assessments include five important evaluative elements:

Authenticity: The assessment reflects a range of real-world skills that are authentic outside of a classroom context.

Reliability: The assessment provides similar results across classroom settings, groups of students, and daily conditions.

Volume: Assessment has not been too regular in the past. Students who have test fatigue will not provide accurate results on any assessment.

Validity: The assessment accurately reflects what students have been taught in the instruction period.

Variety: The assessment prompts students to exhibit skills and demonstrate knowledge in more than one way.

The value and importance of summative assessment rely on having effective evaluation tools. Rubrics are a helpful way to communicate your expectations and to assess a range of skills and content knowledge.

Standardized Testing

Designed to be reliable and to assess a variety of skills, standardized tests are one way to determine what students know at the end of an instructional period. However, these tests have fallen out of favor with instructors in recent years. They increase testing volume and fatigue, may not reflect what students have been taught, and don't always reflect real-world skills - making them poor assessment models.

Summative Assessment Examples for Early Childhood

It's important to use summative assessments at every stage of education. While young children may not be capable of taking multiple-choice tests, there are other ways to measure growth and development milestones in early childhood. Psychomotor and affective skills are important at this stage in addition to cognitive skills.

Developmental assessments are, by nature, somewhat formative, as child development is a dynamic process. However, a teacher can assess specific knowledge and skills after focusing on them in a preschool or developmental unit.

Hands-On Performance Tasks

One of the more straightforward forms of summative assessments for children is a performance task. If a teacher observes a child with a box of manipulatives, such as blocks or cotton balls, they can assess counting skills, number knowledge, fine motor skills, and pattern skills.

Group Project

Social and emotional skills are an important part of early childhood education. After a unit on friendship and sharing, a teacher may assess how well small groups work together when creating, building, or solving a problem. Another form of assessment could include conflict resolution skills or gross-motor tasks.

Observation

Because much of early child development takes place during play, teachers can observe a standard playtime as either a formative or summative assessment. By incorporating an activity into playtime, such as phoneme awareness or number recognition, teachers can observe whether students have mastered a concept from previous instruction.

Clinical Interview

Developed by educator and psychologist Jean Piaget, the clinical interview prompts young children to reflect on their own learning process. Questions may include "How did you do that?" and "How would you encourage a friend?" The interviewer can assess verbal abilities and cognitive processes in a concentrated one-on-one context after focusing on positive self-talk in the classroom.

Summative Assessment Examples for Elementary School

Elementary students start their education with basic skills that become more complex over the years. Depending on the classroom setting, summative assessments can either be straightforward tests or fun, creative projects. Here are some examples of summative assessments you might find in an elementary classroom.

Graded Tests

Though not as engaging as other options, tests at the end of a unit or instructional period are a straightforward way to assess student skills and knowledge. All subjects can incorporate multiple-choice or problem-solving tests. They should still be authentic, reliable, and valid, with a variety of testing measures that do not increase testing volume too much.

Book Reports

Elementary students love talking about their favorite books. Book reports - either as a standard essay format or more creative option - are an effective way to determine if students can apply literary analysis and reading comprehension to a book of their choice.

Science Projects

Individual or group science projects are fun for students to complete and teachers to assess. They can be based on the unit of scientific study from the classroom or on independent research - both of which incorporate important application and evaluation skills.

Multimedia Presentations

Multimedia assessments are an authentic way to assess important content, speaking, and technology skills. Elementary students are surrounded by technology in their daily lives, but may not be able to use it to communicate effectively. A strong multimedia presentation project can prepare them for middle school, high school, and beyond.

Summative Assessment Examples for Secondary School

By middle and high school, students can demonstrate their knowledge in innovative ways. Check out these examples of creative summative assessment ideas for secondary classrooms that vary in levels of complexity.

Formal Essays and Reports

Writing essays is an important part of language arts, but communicating one's ideas is a vital skill for any subject. Writing an argument essay, explaining a concept in an expository essay, or using descriptive prose in a narrative essay are examples of effective summative assessments. Research reports prompt students to use analysis and evaluation skills during the research process.

Socratic Seminars

Middle and high schools enjoy speaking their minds in Socratic seminars. They must prepare arguments, anticipate counterarguments, and use classroom norms to discuss critical points with their peers. These types of summative assessments rely on teacher observation, as the process is primarily led by students.

Final Exams

Teachers use the time-honored final exam format to assess skills and knowledge at the end of a grading period. Exams can vary in their question variety, range of skills, and complexity. They effectively inform a teacher whether their instruction was successful or not during the year.

Portfolio Projects

Although end-of-term portfolio projects require just as much work as final exams, they tend to be more popular with students. Portfolios provide students with an opportunity to reflect on their own work over the year. Strong portfolio projects incorporate a reflection writing aspect as well.

Summative vs. Formative Assessments

Formative assessments are another way to monitor student progress. Unlike summative assessments, formative assessments are informal, ongoing ways to check for understanding. Formative assessments include discussion questions, exit tickets, or reading quizzes. They do not assess a range of skills or knowledge like summative assessments do.

More Instructional Resources

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Effective Summative Assessment Examples for Classrooms

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How can you tell if your students are learning? Check out summative assessment ideas for early child development, elementary school, and secondary school.

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1. Standard Based Learning
2. Mastery Based Learning
3. The Modern Classrooms
4. Responsive Classroom
5. Performance-Based Assessments

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1. Educational Assessments of Students
2. Verbs for Bloom's Taxonomies
3. How to Write Learning Objectives for Bloom's Taxonomies
4. Backward Design Model
5. 10 Principles of a Culture of Thinking

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1. Becoming the Math Teacher you wished you’d had
2. National Council of teachers of English
3. Science Performance Assessments
4. Read Write Think
5. Building Mathematical Thinkers

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1. Leading Equity
2. Truth For Teachers
3. Cult of Pedagogy
4. OSU Inspire
5. TEDX Education

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Susan M. Brookhart, Duquesne University

Anthony J. Nitko, Professor Emeritus, Univeristy of Pittsburgh

Overview

Description
A core text for a first course in classroom assessment and educational testing.

Help pre- and in-service teachers learn to improve their ability to facilitate student learning through better assessment
Educational Assessment of Students offers information about the basics of educational measurement and step-by-step instructions on how to use and construct formative and summative assessments for classroom teaching. The text provides complete coverage of educational assessment, including developing plans that integrate teaching and assessment; using formative assessment strategies and providing effective feedback to students; crafting objective, performance, and portfolio assessments; evaluating students and discussing evaluations with parents; and interpreting state-mandated tests and standardised achievement tests.

This product is an alternate version of

Preface

Preface is available for download in PDF format.

This material is protected under all copyright laws, as they currently exist. No portion of this material may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Features

Help pre- and in-service teachers learn to improve their ability to facilitate student learning

Step-by-step instructions and detailed explanations guide readers through the process of crafting classroom assessments.

Assessment examples show how good and poor classroom assessments affect students' learning.

Checklists offer succinct tips for evaluating the quality of each type of assessment presented in the book.

A separate chapter on integrating instruction and assessment explicitly addresses how to implement this essential purpose of classroom assessment (Ch. 6).

Two full chapters on formative assessment help readers understand how to use assessment as a tool of learning (Chs, 7 and 8).

A chapter on assessing higher-order thinking, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills aids readers in helping students apply and self-regulate their learning and maximize their achievement (Ch. 11).

Keep readers up to date on current practices

REVISED: Up-to-date treatment of feedback shows readers its effects on short- and long-term increases in student achievement and in self-regulation of learning (Ch. 8).

UPDATED: Revised discussions of large-scale assessment techniques for interim, benchmark, and state accountability assessment reflect changes in the field (Ch. 16).

UPDATED: Separate treatment of validity and reliability for classroom assessment details how educators can build high-quality classroom assessments without using large-scale statistical methods (Chs. 3 and 4).

Also available with MyLab Education
MyLab™ is the teaching and learning platform that empowers you to reach every student. By combining trusted author content with digital tools and a flexible platform, MyLab personalizes the learning experience and improves results for each student. MyLab Education helps teacher candidates bridge the gap between theory and practice-better preparing them for success in their future classrooms. Learn more about MyLab Education.

Deliver trusted content: You deserve teaching materials that meet your own high standards for your course. That's why we partner with highly respected authors to develop interactive content and course-specific resources that you can trust-and that keep your students engaged.

Application Exercises challenge learners to reflect on and to apply what they have learned about working with students as an educator. Each scaffolded exercise is tied to a learning outcome in the text.

Embedded eText Videos illustrate classroom assessment in action, helping students better understand course content.

Empower each learner: Each student learns at a different pace. Personalized learning pinpoints the precise areas where each student needs practice, giving all students the support they need-when and where they need it-to be successful.

Self-Check Quizzes throughout the eText help students assess how well they have mastered chapter learning outcomes. The multiple-choice, automatically graded quizzes provide rationales for both correct and incorrect answers.

Teach your course your way: Your course is unique. So whether you'd like to build your own assignments, teach multiple sections, or set prerequisites, MyLab gives you the flexibility to easily create your course to fit your needs.

Improve student results: When you teach with MyLab, student performance often improves. That's why instructors have chosen MyLab for over 15 years, touching the lives of over 50 million students.

Check out the preface for a complete list of features and what's new in this edition.

New to This Edition

Keep readers up to date on current practices

Up-to-date treatment of feedback shows readers its effects on short- and long-term increases in student achievement and in self-regulation of learning (Ch. 8).

Revised discussions of large-scale assessment techniques for interim, benchmark, and state accountability assessment reflect changes in the field (Ch. 16).

Separate treatment of validity and reliability for classroom assessment details how educators can build high-quality classroom assessments without using large-scale statistical methods (Chs. 3 and 4).

Also available with MyLab Education
MyLab™ is the teaching and learning platform that empowers you to reach every student. By combining trusted author content with digital tools and a flexible platform, MyLab personalizes the learning experience and improves results for each student. MyLab Education helps teacher candidates bridge the gap between theory and practice-better preparing them for success in their future classrooms. Learn more about MyLab Education.

Application Exercises challenge learners to reflect on and to apply what they have learned about working with students as an educator. Each scaffolded exercise is tied to a learning outcome in the text.

Embedded eText Videos illustrate classroom assessment in action, helping students better understand course content.

Self-Check Quizzes throughout the eText help students assess how well they have mastered chapter learning outcomes. The multiple-choice, automatically graded quizzes provide rationales for both correct and incorrect answers.

Check out the preface for a complete list of features and what's new in this edition.

Table of Contents

Part I: The Bases for Assessment

1. Classroom Decision Making and Using Assessment 1

2. Describing the Goals of Instruction 18

3. Validity of Assessment Results 37

4. Reliability of Assessment Results 66

5. Professional Responsibilities, Ethical Behavior, and Legal Requirements in Educational Assessments 86

Part II: Crafting and Using Classroom Assessments

6. Planning for Integrating Assessment and Instruction 107

7. Diagnostic and Formative Assessments 132

8. Providing Formative Feedback 152

9. Fill-in-the-Blank and True-False Items 166

10. Multiple-Choice and Matching Exercises 181

11. Higher-Order Thinking, Problem Solving, and Critical Thinking 218

12. Essay Assessment Tasks 240

13. Performance and Portfolio Assessments 260

14. Preparing Your Students to Be Assessed and Using Students' Results to Improve Your Assessments 299

15. Evaluating and Grading Student Achievement 322

Part III: Interpreting and Using Standardized Tests

16. Standardized Achievement Tests 354

17. Interpreting Norm-Referenced Scores 377

18. Finding and Evaluating Published Assessments 411

19. Scholastic Aptitude, Career Interests, Attitudes, and Personality Tests 425

A. Educational Assessment Knowledge and Skills for Teachers 447

B. Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education (Revised) 448

C. Code of Professional Responsibilities in Educational Measurement 452

D. Summaries of Taxonomies of Educational Objectives: Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor Domains 457

E. Implementing the Principles of Universal Design via Technology-Based Testing 464

F. Basic Statistical Concepts 466

G. Computational Procedures for Various Reliability Coefficients 479

H. A Limited List of Published Tests 484

I. List of Test Publishers and Their Websites 486

J. Answers to Even-Numbered Exercises 487

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©2022 &nbsp|&nbspPearson

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©2022 &nbsp|&nbspPearson

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About the Author(s)

Susan M. Brookhart, Ph.D. , is Professor Emerita in the School of Education at Duquesne University and an independent educational consultant and author based in Helena, Montana.

Dr. Brookhart was the 2007-2009 Editor of Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice , and is currently an Associate Editor of Applied Measurement in Education. She is author or co-author of seventeen books and over 70 articles and book chapters on classroom assessment, teacher professional development, and evaluation, including (with Anthony J. Nitko) Assessment and Grading in Classrooms , Grading, How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students , How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading , and (with Connie M. Moss) Learning Targets: Helping Students Aim for Understanding in Today's Lesson . She serves on the editorial boards of several journals and on several national advisory panels. She has been named the 2014 Jason Millman Scholar by the Consortium for Research on Educational Assessment and Teaching Effectiveness (CREATE) and is the recipient of the 2015 Samuel J. Messick Memorial Lecture Award from Educational Testing Service/TOEFL.

Dr. Brookhart's research interests include the role of both formative and summative classroom assessment in student motivation and achievement, the connection between classroom assessment and large-scale assessment, and grading. Dr. Brookhart also works with schools, districts, regional educational service units, universities, and states doing professional development. Dr. Brookhart received her Ph.D. in Educational Research and Evaluation from The Ohio State University, after teaching in both elementary and middle schools. She was a full-time faculty member at Duquesne University from 1989 through 2003, most recently as Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership.

Anthony J. Nitko is a private consultant in educational measurement and Professor Emeritus and former Chairperson of the Department of Psychology in Education at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a University Associate, Department of Educational Psychology, at the University of Arizona. His research interests include curriculum-based criterion-referenced testing, integrating testing and instruction, classroom assessment, and the assessment of knowledge and higher order thinking skills.

Professor Nitko is co-author (with Susan Brookhart) of Educational Assessment of Students . He is author of the chapter, "Designing Tests That Are Integrated With Instruction" in the Third Edition of Educational Measurement , and co-author (with Susan Brookhart) of Assessment and Grading in Classrooms (2008). He co-authored (with Susan Brookhart) the chapter, "Strategies for constructing assessments of higher order thinking skills" (2011). He also co-authored (with C.M. Lindvall) Measuring Pupil Achievement and Aptitude , (with T-C Hsu) Pitt Educational Testing Aids (PETA) (a package of computer programs for classroom teachers), and (with R. Glaser) the chapter "Measurement in Learning and Instruction" in the Second Edition of Educational Measurement .

Professor Nitko has been Editor of the journal Educational Measurement: Issues and Practic e, and later served as the International News Editor of this journal. He was also Editor of d'News , the AERA Division D newsletter. Some of the journals in which his research has appeared include American Educational Research Journal , Applied Measurement in Education , A ssessment in Education: Principles, Policy, & Practice , Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis , Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice , Educational Technology , Journal of Educational Measurement , and Research in Developmental Disabilities .

Professor Nitko is a member of several professional organizations, was elected as Fellow to the American Psychological Association, served on several committees of the American Educational Research Association, elected Secretary of AERA Division D, served on committees of the National Council on Measurement in Education, and was elected to the Board of Directors and as President of the latter. Professor Nitko received Fulbright awards to Malawi and to Barbados. He has served as a consultant to various government and private agencies in Bangladesh, Barbados, Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Liberia, Malawi, Namibia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United States, Vietnam, and Yemen.

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Susan M. Brookhart, Duquesne University Anthony J. Nitko, Professor Emeritus, Univeristy of Pittsburgh Overview Description A core text for a first course in classroom assessment and educational testing.

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How to Write Learning Objectives using Bloom’s Taxonomy

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How to Write Learning Objectives using Bloom’s Taxonomy

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3.2 - How to Write Learning Objectives Using Bloom's Taxonomy

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Visible Thinking is a flexible and systematic research-based conceptual framework, which aims to integrate the development of students' thinking with content learning across subject matters.

Visible Thinking began as an initiative to develop a research-based approach to teaching thinking dispositions. The approach emphasized three core practices: thinking routines, the documentation of student thinking, and reflective professional practice. It was originally developed at Lemshaga Akademi in Sweden as part of the Innovating with Intelligence project, and focused on developing students' thinking dispositions in such areas as truth-seeking, understanding, fairness, and imagination. It has since expanded its focus to include an emphasis on thinking through art and the role of cultural forces and has informed the development of other Project Zero Visible Thinking initiatives, including Artful Thinking, and Cultures of Thinking.

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Visible Thinking is a flexible and systematic research-based conceptual framework, which aims to integrate the development of students' thinking with content learning across subject matters. Visible Thinking began as an initiative to develop a research-based approach to teaching thinking dispositions. The approach emphasized three core practices: thinking routines, the documentation of student thinking, and reflective professional practice.

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Welcome to the Leading Equity Podcast

The Leading Equity Podcast focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their school. On this podcast, listeners can expect to hear interviews and stories from voices of equity in education today. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify!

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The Leading Equity Podcast focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their school. On this podcast, listeners can expect to hear interviews and stories from voices of equity in education today. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify!

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Becoming the Math Teacher You Wished You'd had

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Becoming the Math Teacher You Wished You'd had

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Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had

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National Council of Teachers of English 

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National Council of Teachers of English 

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The Elementary Section Steering Committee of NCTE is committed to the pursuit of justice and equity. We believe that in an open democratic society we cannot argue for democracy and humanity unless we create for our children a more just and caring world.

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Education for Teachers

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As students become better and better at taking standardized tests, schools that are making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) can give themselves a pat on the back and breathe a sigh of relief once assessments have concluded. For students in those schools, countless hours of drilling, reviewing, and teaching test-taking strategies have paid off! But how do we really know that our students have internalized the information presented to them?

Performance assessments allow teachers to obtain a much richer and more complete picture of what students know and are able to do. These types of assessments can take many forms, but all involve requiring students to create some sort of product that demonstrates their knowledge and skills. For example, rather than taking a traditional paper-and-pencil test, students can be asked to show understanding of certain concepts through various products, such as those in this example assessment for a unit on animal adaptations in which each student chooses one of the following:

Story - Write and illustrate a children's book about animal adaptations. Your book may be fiction or nonfiction, but fiction books should still be based on facts!

Letter - Write a letter to your representative in congress describing what you have learned about habitat depletion in your area. Describe how the destruction of this habitat may lead to problems for the various animals adapted to it, and list ideas you have to help improve the situation. The letter must be typed and contain excellent spelling and grammar.

Song - Write and perform a song describing a variety of animal adaptations. You may use an instrument if you choose to do so!

Comic Strip - Write a comic strip that illustrates ideas for our animal adaptations unit. Although your comic will likely contain fictitious elements, remember to provide the reader with facts!

Textbook Chapter - You have recently been hired to write a section for a textbook chapter on animal adaptations. Write your section using lots of facts, pictures, and diagrams.

Photo Essay - Create a photo essay with captions that illustrates some adaptations of animals in our area.

Diorama - Design and build a diorama that depicts a certain habitat and the animals within it. Explain how each of the animals in your habitat is specifically adapted to that habitat.

Game - Create an educational game that could teach students about animal adaptations. Include lots of facts and problem-solving activities in your game.

No matter which project you choose, it should show that you understand the following ideas:

What are adaptations?

What are some examples of adaptations on land and in water?

How are different animal species adapted for different climates?

How do organisms become adapted to their environment?

For more examples of alternate ways to assess students in science and other areas, try one of the following lesson plans.

Science Performance Assessments:
Electronic Portfolios
Teachers can use electronic portfolios to record student progress. While well established in higher education, it's becoming a part of the K-12 classroom as well. This lesson provides suggestions for using electronic portfolios in the classroom.
Photo Essay Semester Project
During this project students practice research and organizational skills. They design a photo essay and interview a person associated with the students's chosen topic. They use digital cameras, magazines and other sources to compile their photos. Students write a paragraph to describe each photo.

Everyday Force and Motion

This lesson provides an interesting way for students to show what they have learned about force and motion. They design a prototype of a car as part of this project.

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As students become better and better at taking standardized tests, schools that are making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) can give themselves a pat on the back and breathe a sigh of relief once assessments have concluded. For students in those schools, countless hours of drilling, reviewing, and teaching test-taking strategies have paid off!

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Not your everyday calendar, here you can find important events in literary history, authors' birthdays, and a variety of holidays, all with related activities and resources that make them more relevant to students.

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Not your everyday calendar, here you can find important events in literary history, authors' birthdays, and a variety of holidays, all with related activities and resources that make them more relevant to students.

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Building Mathematical Thinkers

Bridges in Mathematics is a comprehensive PK-5 curriculum that equips teachers to fully address state standards in a rigorous, engaging, and accessible manner. Students gain a deep understanding of concepts, proficiency with key skills, and the ability to solve complex problems. The curriculum is composed of three distinct but integrated components: Problems & Investigations, Work Places and Number Corner.

An engaging selection of visual models, manipulatives, games, apps and other unique learning materials

Seeing, touching, and sketching ideas create pictures in the mind's eye, helping learners construct, understand, and apply mathematical ideas. Bridges incorporates increasingly complex visual models, including the number line and the array models, in a coherent framework across the curriculum.

Bridges has been so effective. My students are challenged and engaged, and parents and administrators are very impressed. I am very confident that my students learned far more in math this year than in previous years.

I used to wish math would go by fast because I didn't get it and I also hoped my teacher wouldn't call on me. But now I hope we do math all day long because I love it so much. I also like to go up to the board and share and explain my thinking!

The addition of the Number Rack to Bridges provides a wonderful tool for engaging learners with the tens-frame model. I am so impressed with how my students are confidently constructing number combinations and modeling equations efficiently.

The third grade teacher who had my second grade students the following year couldn't believe the vocabulary and conceptual development my kids had in math.

I love watching students working with Bridges as they build knowledge, confidence, autonomy, and a sincere love for mathematics.

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Building Mathematical Thinkers Bridges in Mathematics is a comprehensive PK-5 curriculum that equips teachers to fully address state standards in a rigorous, engaging, and accessible manner. Students gain a deep understanding of concepts, proficiency with key skills, and the ability to solve complex problems. The curriculum is composed of three distinct but integrated components: Problems & Investigations, Work Places and Number Corner.

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The motivation for change comes in strange and unsettling ways. In this podcast series, faculty and alumni at Ohio State's College of Education and Human Ecology tell how they discovered their calling, sometimes against incredible odds.

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TED Talks Education, hosted by John Legend, premiered May 7, 2013 on PBS. Watch full-length versions of talks from the show right here.

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56 Ways to Gather Formative Assessments 

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56 Ways to Gather Formative Assessments 

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CT.gov - Connecticut's Official State Website

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To help schools establish a philosophical and pedagogical foundation for their work, the Great Schools Partnership created the following “Ten Principles of Mastery-Based Learning,” which describe the common features found in the most effective mastery-based systems.

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Performance assessment is structured in a way that encourages deeper engagement by eliciting elaboration, questioning, synthesis, and justification.

Performance Assessment and Student Learning

With advancements in educational technology and the desire to measure higher-order thinking skills, it is no longer sufficient for students to complete only traditional multiple-choice tests. Selected-response tests often favor lower-order recall and thinking skills over complex and higher-order skills (DarlingHammond & Adamson, 2014). With only multiple-choice tests, it is difficult to truly understand what a student is thinking, planning, and reasoning without observing evidence of their skills and abilities. Performance assessment technology can empower districts to gain deeper insights into student learning that were previously unattainable.

Diverse Districts with Common Goals

School districts across the country all aspire to touch the life of every student by meeting them where they are and empowering them on a path to success. As students matriculate, content can become more complex, and the very nature of performance assessment can appear challenging to execute as part of daily instruction. The school schedule may limit teacher access to useful data that informs instruction. The schedule may also limit opportunities to give crucial feedback to students in a timely, consistent manner.

Shrinking budgets and competing priorities compound the issue. Districts may default to multiple-choice assessments alone because of the perceived efficiencies in scoring and recording results. Many education leaders agree that performance assessment is a viable, rigorous, and instructionally beneficial method for assessing student knowledge, skills, and abilities in classroom contexts. This paper will examine the background, research, and practical applications of performance assessment to better understand its benefits in the classroom.

What is Performance Assessment in an Educational Context?

Performance assessment measures student learning in an authentic and actionable way. Skills demonstrated on a performance assessment are reflective of actual skills learned in the classroom. Assessments allow students to demonstrate their knowledge, using processes and methods that are congruent with skills they use every day. Assessments can serve in both formative and summative contexts to support student success (Hofman, 2015). Students can show what they know, and educators can see rich evidence of student learning.

Performance assessment is especially useful in areas were students can showcase their ability to synthesize, create, and problem-solve. While all subject areas are suited for performance assessment, subjects that lend themselves particularly well include English Language Arts, Math, Science, Foreign Languages, Music, Arts, Engineering, and Career and Technical Education classes.

Performance assessments are particularly useful to support student learning when embedded into the curriculum (Hofman, 2015). Embedding performance assessments directly into the curriculum allows for streamlined teaching, instruction, and assessment without intruding on classroom time.

Embedded performance assessment also supports good instruction, and research suggests the format of assessment impacts instructional approaches:

* A test with multiple-choice items leads to instruction that uses multiple-choice for learning,

* A test with performance assessment leads to more projectbased or open-ended work products. (Stecher, 2014).

When teachers use open-ended, problem-based, and projectbased approaches to learning, they prepare students to successfully complete a performance assessment. With new technologies, performance assessments are a more realistic option for all educators to leverage, as part of their instructional strategy on a more regular basis.

How do performance assessments differ from traditional assessments?

Traditional assessments such as multiple-choice assessments, when used as the only type of assessment have limitations for student assessment. Performance assessment allows for the demonstration of skill, while traditional assessment may be limited to demonstration of knowledge only. Additionally, performance assessment removes the chance of getting the right answer through guessing alone. The probability of correctly guessing the answer to a multiple-choice item with four choices is 25%. A student may not know the concept but can still get the item correct. Performance assessment allows for students to answer correctly, not because they guess, but because they confidently know the content.

Performance assessment allows for students to answer correctly, not because they guess, but because they confidently know the content.

Performance assessment is different from traditional assessment because it gives students freedom to show their knowledge in ways that traditional assessments cannot. In performance assessments, students are given a problem to solve, a prompt to respond to, or a task to complete. For instance, a prompt might ask students to write a persuasive essay that requires a student to take a stand and back up their point with well reasoned arguments. Students can respond using their own insights and ideas. Performance assessments are structured in a way encourages deeper engagement by eliciting elaboration, questioning, synthesis, and justification.

Many districts are moving toward standards-based grading and performance assessments. Performance assessments make it possible to evaluate standards that have traditionally been difficult to assess with only multiple-choice assessments. Hence, tasks are being incorporated more frequently into assessments.

...performance assessment promotes a high-level of objectivity, fairness, and equity. Unconscious bias can be removed from the rating process...

A performance assessment uses either an analytic or a holistic rubric to rate student responses. Traditional assessments typically assign points based on right or wrong answers. Performance assessments-and specifically analytic rubrics- allow for partial credit scores and for ratings to be assigned along a scale, not just based on a right or wrong answer.

Analytic rubrics can highlight specific strengths and areas for growth along a continuum; they are highly supportive of learning and growth within a formative assessment program. Analytic rubrics divide a content area into domains for assessment. Each domain is scored independently of the others. One analytic rubric for a writing assessment may have six domains, thus creating a more comprehensive view of students' understanding.

When well-designed and conducted as part of a larger assessment, performance assessment promotes a high-level of objectivity, fairness, and equity. Unconscious bias can be removed from the rating process when more than one rater participates in scoring. One teacher may hold unconscious bias about a student or group of students-such as that girls are better writers than boys. If this bias is unconscious, the teacher is likely unaware that their marking could unfairly advantage female students and disadvantage male students.

When a second rater is used in the performance assessment scoring process, a second evaluation can be used as an objective counterbalance; it can illuminate areas of bias for the teacher and safeguard fair scoring for the student. Two teachers reviewing each student response ensures students are evaluated on their actual abilities, not on characteristics, such as gender, race, or ethnicity; scores are based on achievement alone.

Key Advantages to Performance Assessment:

* Better measure of complex and higher-order skills

* Measures student learning in an authentic and actionable way

* Encourages deeper student engagement

* Create a more comprehensive view of students' understanding.

* Enables students to transfer knowledge and skills to real-world situations

* Fosters professional development opportunities for teachers and staff

What Does the Research Say About Performance Assessments?

When implemented thoughtfully, performance assessment can yield trustworthy validity and reliability evidence of student learning (Lane & Stone, 2006). Because so many subject areas lend themselves to performance assessment, the assessments can yield evidence of greater construct validity.
* In a writing test, a student can construct a response rather than select a correct answer. * In a science assessment, students can submit parts of a lab report or science experiment for review. * In an art assessment, students can submit an actual drawing that showcases shading techniques rather than just recall techniques in a multiple-choice format.
Each of these work products allow for more authentic construct validity compared to a selected response test where the correct answer is merely identified (Brookhart & Nitko, 2018).

Modern learning theories that promote inquiry and construction of knowledge are well aligned with performance assessment methods (Brookhart, 2018). A skilled teacher can create a learning experience where students build their own knowledge and can transfer that knowledge to novel situations. A well designed performance assessment enables students to transfer their knowledge and skills to real-world situations. Performance tasks are simply better suited than traditional multiple-choice to measure the complexities of contemporary knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Besides aligning with contemporary education methods, performance assessments promote student motivation. When students get to choose what response they reply to, they can select how they present their work, the arguments they wish to make, and the facts they call upon to back up their points. The ability to exercise some creative and intellectual control over the outcome can help increase engagement and motivation during the assessment.

How does performance assessment best support instruction?

There is little question that performance assessment will give all students a more personalized voice in the classroom. Feedback from performance assessment also empowers students to grow from where they are to where they aim to be. Feedback is the most impactful influence on student learning outcomes (Hattie & Timperly, 2007).

Performance assessment helps students and teachers answer the important questions in learning (Hattie & Timperly, 2007):

* What goals am I working toward?

* How am I progressing?

* What are the greater possibilities for learning?

The feedback from performance assessments-especially those used for formative purposes-surpasses the feedback one can get from multiple-choice items that rely on recall. The feedback from performance assessments help students understand where they are academically, and next skills they need for growth.

Performance assessment within the instructional process has advantages for teachers. Preparing for performance assessments could be more professionally fulfilling for educators, because best practices they use in their classroom instruction align with best practices in assessment. Teachers benefit from designing performance assessments, evaluating and rating responses, and reviewing assessment results. Review of student work is shown to be a valuable method to support teacher professional learning and school improvement initiatives (Little, et al., 2003). When teachers collaborate around the task of analyzing student work, the practice-in and of itself-becomes highly student centered. When teachers work together to uncover differentiators of "good" work from "advanced" work and compare responses to agreed upon exemplars, new insights about the teaching and learning process emerge. Furthermore, educator participation in performance assessment fosters professional learning communities and calibrates high expectations among teachers.

The Future of Performance Assessment

The benefits of performance assessment can yield breakthroughs in student learning. By aligning classroom best practices with assessment methodology, empowering students with choice, and creating motivating assessments for student, districts may realize new frontiers in student achievement. While this type of transformation doesn't occur over night, each step toward a comprehensive assessment program is progress.

MZD's innovative platforms combine the advantages of a robust and easy-to-use scoring platform with evidencebacked learning and assessment practices.

New technologies by MZD offer groundbreaking solutions never before available to districts. MZD's innovative platforms combine the advantages of a robust and easy-to-use scoring platform with evidence-backed learning and assessment practices. The ability to design and flawlessly execute common performance assessments is finally here.

For more information on Performance Assessment visit our other posts Here, Here, and Here.

References

Brookhart, S. (2017). How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Brookhart, S., & Nitko, A. (2018). Educational Assessment of Students. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Darling-Hammond, L., & Adamson, F. (2014). Beyond the Bubble Test: How Performance Assessments Support 21st Century Learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Hattie, J., & Timperly, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(81-112).

Hofman, P., Goodwin, B., & Kahl, S. (2015). Re-balancing assessment: Placing formative and performance assessment at the heart of learning and accountability. Denver, CO: McREL International.

Lane, S., & Stone, C. (2006). Performance Assessment. In (ED.) Brennan, R., Educational Measurement. Westport, CT: Prager

Little, J. W., Gearhart, M., Curry, M., & Kafka, J. (2003). Looking at Student Work for Teacher Learning, Teacher Community, and School Reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 85(3), 184-192.

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Performance assessment is structured in a way that encourages deeper engagement by eliciting elaboration, questioning, synthesis, and justification. Performance Assessment and Student Learning With advancements in educational technology and the desire to measure higher-order thinking skills, it is no longer sufficient for students to complete only traditional multiple-choice tests.