Performance Assessment for Science Teachers

Dr. Hugh Baird

© Copyright 1997 by Dr. Hugh Baird. All Rights Reserved.
Production of this manual was funded by the Utah State Office of Education.

Table of Contents

Getting Started

A. Goals of the Course

B. Self Tests

C. Credit & Grades

D. Text

E. How to Proceed

Background Reading

General Principles of Evaluation

Measurement vs. Evaluation

Why Evaluate Students?

Reliability vs. Validity

Norm vs. Criterion Evaluation

Formative vs. Summative Evaluation

Self-Test on Formative vs. Summative Evaluation

The role of "objectives," & "intended learning outcomes"

The role of inference in evaluation

Type of evaluation items

Self-Test on Test-Item Determination

Constructing objectively scored items

Self-Test on Objective Item Construction

Evaluating Higher Order Thinking

A beginning classification of higher-level items

Interpretive exercise

Example 1

Example 2

Essay Questions

Five Guidelines for Writing Essay Questions

Performance Tests & Tasks

More Authentic Performance Measures:

Rationale

Goals

What is authentic assessment?

Samples:

Water Quality

Designing a Classification System - A

Designing a Classification System - B

Background Information and Requisite Abilities

Not In My Backyard - Teacher Notes

Not In My Backyard - Scoring Form

Not In My Backyard - Part I

Not In My Backyard - Part II

Not In My Backyard - Part III

Developing a Performance Test

Performance Assessment Scoring Guide