0.4 4. designing performance assessments: a guide for faculty; gary  (Page 10/12)

One way to begin this process is to submit the draft performance assessment documents for departmental peer review and discussion. This approach is a good way to get an initial sense of perceived face validity and how well the design elements align with the standards. During these discussions it would be helpful to engage in scenario building to explore what the baseline performance might look like. After field testing and implementation (Steps 7 – 10), continue checking the quality of student work, particularly marginal performances, to test the viability of the “cut point” that is established.

To this point, the chapter described six steps involved in designing performance assessments in relation to a set of professional standards. The process includes identifying key performances, developing activities that elicit the performances, and writing assessment rubrics to guide judgments about the quality of the performances. The next section contains a brief overview of the remaining three phases (6 steps) of high quality assessment outlined by Dr. Anderson viewed from the perspective of performance assessment design.

Evaluation, implementation, and program development phase

When the design phase is complete, the quality assessment process enters the evaluation phase, which consists of two steps; piloting the performance and using the rubric to evaluate samples of student work.

The goal of piloting is to seek feedback from students and faculty who may not have been directly involved in the design phase prior to implementation of the assessment at the program or department level. What appeared to be crystal clear during the writing process often turns out to be confusing or cumbersome when one actually tries to follow the directions or use the rubric to assess students’ work. Piloting allows tweaking to occur before final implementation. Once a performance assessment is rolled out for use it is good practice to establish a review process that ensures monitoring and adjustment occurs over time.

During piloting actual student work is evaluated for the first time using the rubric that was developed and a content review of rated material presents an opportunity to refine the evaluation assessment standards that were established at the conclusion of the design phase. The process of selecting anchor performances, examples of student work at each level of the rubric, provides insight regarding how the assessment activity, assignment template and rubric are interacting to elicit the performance and guide documentation. Content analysis of anchor documents that meet or exceed standards is one way to ensure that the assessment is valid.

The evaluation phase ensures that the components of the assessment design are coherent, understandable, and differentiate performances as expected. Evaluation provides opportunity for quality control before going to scale. During the implementation phase that follows, faculty assessors are trained using the anchor performances to increase inter-rater reliability and the performance assessment becomes a program requirement for all students.