0.2 2. staging the performance: the challenge of authenticity in  (Page 3/8)

In order to address these quality characteristics, assessment developers typically follow a set of steps (Herman et. al., 1992; Stiggins, 1994). There are four interconnected phases for developing a performance assessment, involving twelve steps:

Phase 1: design

This initial phase involves identifying the knowledge and skills that a student should possess and developing a set of activities or products that provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate their mastery. The following steps are included in this phase:

1) List and prioritize the knowledge, skills, and dispositions from the curriculum. (Standards)

2) Choose an activity that will allow students to demonstrate mastery of each set of knowledge, skills, or dispositions. (Assessment Activity)

3) Choose a product that captures this activity (an essay, a video, artifacts that identify the assessment object)

4) Brainstorm characteristics of a good product. (Assessment Criteria)

5) Formulate those characteristics into a rubric, including both holistic and analytic rubrics. (Rubric formation) Typically, assessment developers will brainstorm characteristics of a performance that hits the target, one that misses the target (since missing the target is not necessarily just the absence of the hit the target behaviors), and one that reflects developmental behaviors in between. This provides a three level rubric—a five level rubric can simply allow the assessor to place performances between the levels. In any case, any number of levels can be developed through a brainstorming session.

6) Set benchmarks for assessment—what is adequate for program accountability purposes? (Setting Performance Standards)

Phase 2:evaluation

During this phase designers use the performance assessment with students in order to determine whether the activity appropriately measures the knowledge and skills identified earlier. Two additional steps are included.

7) Pilot the performance assessment with some students.

8) Evaluate student work, using the rubric. Choose a set of student work samples that illustrate each level of each rubric. (Identifying Anchor performances) These anchor performances, along with the rubric, are invaluable tools for students to understand the targe they are expected to hit.

Phase 3:implementation

The third phase focuses on implementing the performance assessment. Assessors are trained and the scoring rubric broadly used to assess student work. Two steps are included in this phase.

9) Train assessors using the anchor performances to ensure inter-rater reliability;

10) Apply the rubric to all appropriate students.

Phase 4:program development

This final phase involves examining data about the assessment to identify patterns that may indicate issues of fairness in implementation. It also includes examining again whether the performance activity appropriately measures the knowledge and skills identified in Phase 1. Two final steps are included in this phase.

11) Examine the results—look for patterns in the results. Are there achievement gaps between males and females? Between minority and majority students? If so, there may be an issue of fairness in an assessment. Re-evaluate the assessment in light of any achievement gaps, and modify accordingly.