Match Assessments to Instructional Content and Student Performance Goals

Assessments should be well matched with the full range of goals for student performance. The following table (Marzano, Pickering, & McTighe, 1993) indicates which form of assessment is most appropriate for specific types of content - particularly comparing the use of alternative assessments or performance assessments to more conventional multiple-choice and short response assessments. The authors state that both process skills and content knowledge can be simple or complex. Simple process skills are short routines that are applied fairly consistently across situations, such as long division. Complex process skills, such as writing or critical thinking, require many decisions and the integration of many simple process skills. Likewise, simple content knowledge includes skills such as recalling facts, while complex content knowledge includes concepts and generalizations.

When to Use Alternative Assessment

Type of Skills	Multiple-Choice, Short Response	Performance Assessment
Process Skills: Simple	Long division Punctuation, grammar Decoding words
Process Skills: Complex		Problem solving Writing Setting up an experiment Critical Thinking Group cooperation Lifelong learning Dance
Content/Declarative Knowledge: Simple	Recall facts (e.g., date, places, events)
Content/Declarative Knowledge: Complex		Concepts (e.g. democracy) Generalizations (e.g. "power corrupts")

Table excerpted with permission from:
Marzano, R., Pickering, D., & McTigh, J. (1993). Assessing student outcomes: Performance assessment using the dimensions of learning model. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

To assess complex procedural skills, Marzano et al. would set up a task that requires students to use the skills in question and develop performance criteria to measure different levels of successful performance.

To assess complex declarative knowledge:

Decide how students will apply this knowledge - comparing, classifying, evaluating cases, deducing consequences, constructing support, etc.
Decide how students will report the results of their application - writing, speaking, drawing, etc.
Develop performance criteria for three areas:
- Content/declarative knowledge - how well does the student know the content?
- Quality of the product - how well did the student present the work in writing, speaking, etc.
- Quality of the application - how well did the student execute the knowledge application process? For example, how well did the student find examples of a concept?

Thus, determining content is an essential first step in the selection or design of any assessment strategy.

References