Module 3 (AoL2)
Module 3 (AoL2)
Introduction
Feb. 1 (3 hours)
I. Objectives
At the end of the end of this module, students should be able to:
1. Define process-oriented learning competencies.
2. Explain the nature of performance-based assessment.
3. Set simple and complex process-oriented learning competencies for a given task.
4. Design their own holistic and analytic rubric for process-oriented performances.
5. Determine the appropriate scenarios for the use of either an analytic or holistic rubric.
II. Lecture
Assessing learners relies heavily on how reliable and valid the assessment tools are. Another part
of performing an effective assessment is properly determining which task the learners are supposed to
demonstrate during the process. One of the ways to address these two issues is to use performance-based
assessment.
Performance-Based Assessment, according to McMillan (2007, cited from Cajigal and Mantuano,
2014), is the type of assessment where the teacher gathers observational data and uses these data to
evaluate the learner based on their demonstration of a skill or competency in a particular task such as creating
a product, constructing a response, or making a presentation. Furthermore, Ferman (2005, cited from Cajigal
and Mantuano, 2014) also emphasized that performance-based assessment (PBA) utilizes the ability on the
learners by forcing them to produce their own products, whether it be made individually or in group in the
form of oral or written performance. This product exhibits the concepts that they have learned, Ferman added.
PBA also enhances the creative prowess of learners by applying what their ideas, thoughts, and
skills are in the project that is assigned to them. This experience of creating their own product makes the
learners more motivated and involved in doing their best, which then makes the performance more
meaningful and significant according to Cajigal and Mantuano (2014).
While PBA allows learners to translate their learnings into skills and into products, it also allows the
teachers to determine the effectivity of the process or procedure used and the product created due to the
performance tasks that they have set (Linn, 1995, cited from Cajigal and Mantuano, 2014). This continuous
process of determining the appropriateness of the assessment tools goes away from the traditional tests for
factual knowledge since using PBA results in a diverse set of products and performances where there is no
single correct answer but rather a plethora of criteria and standards that is used to determine the proficiency
and degree of these projects.
According to Popham (2011, as cited from Cajigal and Mantuano, 2014), performance assessment
should have three features:
• Multiple evaluation criteria – The performance of learners should be evaluated on more than one
standard or criteria with each having an appropriate connection to the task that the learners will
perform.
• Pre-specified quality standards – The criteria of the assessment upon which the learner’s
performance would be judged should be conveyed to the learners in a clear and understandable
manner before the actual performance.
• Judgmental appraisal – The assessment of performance is done manually by teachers and
cannot be left to computing technology tools. The human judgement allows us to discern whether
a performance of the learner is acceptable or needs remediation.
Cajigal and Mantuano (2014) added that performance assessment tasks should be based on real-
world contexts in order to increase the authenticity of the performance. Teachers must note that
contextualized tasks allow some characteristics of the assessment, particularly student performance,
creation, construction, and production of product, to be observable in a classroom setting and can also be
used to assess deep understanding and reasoning skills of the learners, Cajigal and Mantuano added.
Table 1. Five Questions to Consider in Determining Competencies (Herman, 1992, retrieved from Cajigal
and Mantuano, 2014)
Note that a single learning competency cannot encompass all of these questions. Some skills are
better utilized in the cognitive domain of learning and vice versa. The teachers need to select these
competencies and, at the same time, devise an assessment tool to measure these competencies.
Learning Targets
In setting the purpose of the assessment, the learning targets first needs to be identified. These
targets are diverse in nature. However, according to McMillan (2007, retrieved from Cajigal and Mantuano,
2014), there are four primary learning targets in PBA which are:
1. Deep Understanding
The essence of performance assessment includes the development of students’ deep
understanding. The idea is to involve students meaningfully in hands-on activities for
extended periods of time so that their understanding is rich and more extensive than
what can be attained by more conventional instruction and traditional paper-and-pencil
assessments. This focuses on the use of knowledge and skills.
2. Reasoning
Reasoning is essential with performance assessment as the students demonstrate skills
and construct products. Typically, students are given a problem to solve or are asked to
make a decision or other outcome, such as a letter to the editor or school newsletter,
based on information that is provided.
3. Skills
In addition to logical and reasoning skills, students are required to demonstrate
communication, presentation, and psychomotor skills. These targets are ideally suited
to performance assessment.
Psychomotor skills describe clearly the physical action required for a given task. These
may be developmentally appropriate skills or skills that are needed for specific tasks:
fine motor skills (holding a pen, focusing a microscope, and using scissors) gross motor
actions (jumping and lifting), more complex athletic skills (shooting a basketball or
playing soccer), some visual skills, and verbal / auditory skills for young children. These
skills also identify the level at which the skill is to be performed.
Generally, deep understanding and reasoning involve in-depth, complex thinking about
what is known and application of knowledge and skills in novel and more sophisticated
ways. Skills include student proficiency in reasoning, communication, and psychomotor
tasks.
4. Products
This learning target is the set of completed works, such as term papers, projects, and
other assignments in which students use their knowledge and skills.
The learning targets mentioned above does not necessarily need to be observed in a single PBA
session because these targets have separate sets of standards and criteria. Hence, a single PBA usually
tests no more than 2 of these learning targets.
Navarro and Santos (2013) have further implied the use of the Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning in
setting the objectives of the task, which evidently ranges from simple tasks to more complex processes.
Furthermore, they stated that simple competencies usually only involve one particular skill while more
complex competencies involve more than a single skill.
Some examples of simple competencies, according to Navarro and Santos (2013), are:
• Speak with a well-modulated voice;
• Draw a straight line from one point to another point;
• Color a leaf with a green crayon.
While some examples of complex competencies are:
• Recite a poem with feeling using appropriate voice quality, facial expressions, and hand
gestures;
• Construct an equilateral triangle given three non-collinear points;
• Draw and color a leaf with green crayon.
A teacher must meticulously prepare each objective for the general task as these objectives will be
the basis for creating the assessment tool for PBA. Navarro and Santos (2013) have divulged three standards
in designing tasks which are:
• Identifying an activity that would highlight the competencies to be evaluated, e.g.,
reciting a poem, writing an essay, manipulating the microscope etc.
• Identifying an activity that would entail more or less the same sets of competencies.
If an activity would result in too many possible competencies, then the teacher
would have difficulty assessing the student's competency on the task.
• Finding a task that would be interesting and enjoyable for the students. Tasks such
as writing an essay are often boring and cumbersome for the students.
Additionally, they provided an example for following such standards. Say we have the task
“Understanding biological diversity”. The possible action could be to bring the learners to a pond or creek
and task them to find all the living organisms that they could see in the area. Afterwards, the teacher could
bring the learners to another area and ask them to do the same task. The teacher then observes if the
students have created a system for collecting, classifying, and differentiating the organisms that they have
found in the two areas of study.
Scoring Rubrics
A rubric, as defined by Navarro and Santos (2013), is a scoring scale used to assess student
performance along a task-specific set of criteria. The student performance is matched against the set criteria
and is evaluated whether they have successfully achieved a level of proficiency. The teacher chooses the
criteria for the rubric along with the descriptors (which describe a level of performance) for the criteria. An
example of a rubric for an oral recitation in English was supplied below by Navarro and Santos (2013):
The criteria in the given table, represented by the first column on Table 2, shows the different
competencies or tasks that students are required to show during the performance itself. The 3rd to 5th column
represents the performance level which are called descriptors. For example, the criteria “Number of Hand
Gestures” has three performance levels which are “1-4 (hand gestures)”, “5-9”, and “10-12”. Each of these
levels shows the proficiency of the learner in the given criteria with 1 being the lowest and 3 being the highest.
Meanwhile, the 2nd column shows the weight of each criterion since each criterion could have different
bearings to the assessment of the learners especially when a criterion is closely related or more vital to the
performance task compared to the others. In the given rubric, the teacher implies that having proper
ambiance is more important than having appropriate facial expression, for example.
What this system implies, in the given rubric, is that each row begins with the criterion followed by
the lowest level of proficiency in the said criterion which gradually rises as it goes to the right.
The presence of descriptors in a rubric aids the evaluators and students in determining what
techniques they would employ in the assessment process. Additionally, the descriptors provide an ease of
use to the teachers since observable performances could be placed under one of the descriptors in a given
criterion.
Table 3. Holistic Rubric Example (Retrieved from Navarro and Santos, 2013)
3 – Excellent Speaker
• Included 10-12 changes in hand gestures.
• No apparent inappropriate facial expressions.
• Utilized proper voice inflection.
• Can create proper ambiance for the poem.
2 – Good Speaker
• Included 5-9 changes in hand gestures.
• Few inappropriate facial expressions.
• Had some inappropriate voice inflection changes.
• Almost creating proper ambiance.
1 – Poor Speaker
• Included 1-4 changes in hand gestures.
• Lots of inappropriate facial expressions.
• Used monotone voice.
• Did not create proper ambiance.
Navarro and Santos (2013) stated that there is no suggested number of performance levels
(descriptors) for an analytic rubric however they inferred that beginning teachers can have as few as two
descriptors. Increasing descriptors provide finer proficiency level differences between the performances but
also increase the level of error or unreliability for the evaluators. Among the other reasons why the duo
suggests using lesser number of descriptors are:
• Ease in administering the rubric.
• Requires less effort in explaining the descriptors to the students.
• Smaller rubrics can easily be expanded while large rubrics are hard to compress.
Additionally, Navarro and Santos (2013) have also stated several reasons why using descriptors is
beneficial in the assessment process. These reasons are:
1. Clearer Expectations
It is very useful for the students and the teachers if the criteria are identified and
communicated prior to the completion of the task. Students know what is expected
of them and teachers know what to look for in student performance, Similarly,
students better understand what good (or bad) performance on a task looks like if
levels of performance are identified, particularly if descriptors for each level are
included.
3. Better Feedback
Furthermore, identifying specific levels of student performance allows the teacher
to provide more detailed feedback to students. The teacher and the students can
more clearly recognize areas that need improvement.
While other assessment tools do exist in evaluating performance task, the usual go-to of teachers
would be rubrics as some criteria does not need to be justified to be included in a given rubric. The abundance
of rubric templates and researches regarding performance task also serve as a good source of setting criteria
should an individual teacher encounter difficulty in creating their own.
IV. Assessment
You will do your assessment in groups of 4. Your task is to make a sample analytic and holistic rubric
based on two process-oriented competencies/tasks found in your selected curriculum guide. Select two
topics and for each you will make one analytic and one holistic rubric; totaling to four rubrics. Note that you
cannot choose similar tasks (for example, if one task is to create an essay, then the other task should NOT
be to create an essay or similar compositions).
The performance levels (descriptors) should be at least 3 per criteria and there should be at least 4
criteria per rubric.
Encode your work in a single document and upload it in our Google Classroom. Do not forget to put
your name and the name of your groupmates, course, section, and date on the upper part of the document.
Only one member of the group has to upload their work. Put your name and your group mates name on the
private comment (description box) when you upload the file.
V. Other References
• Navarro, Rosita L. and De Guzman-Santos, Rosita (2013) Authentic Assessment of
Student Learning Outcomes 2 (2nd Edition). Lorimar Publishing, Inc. Quezon City, Manila
• Jazmin-Hena, Lilia (2015) Classroom Assessment 2. Great Books Trading. Quezon City,
Manila
• Cajigal, Ronan M. and Mantuano, Maria Leflor D. (2014) Assessment of Learning 2.
Adriana Publishing Co., Inc. Quezon City, Manila
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