CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM DESCRIPTION

MOTIVATION AND BACKGROUND

Performance assessment, also known as alternative or authentic assessment, is a

form of testing that requires students to perform a task rather than select an answer from a

ready-made list. For example, a student may be asked to explain historical events,

generate scientific hypotheses, solve math problems, converse in a foreign language, or

conduct research on an assigned topic. Experienced raters--either teachers or other trained

staff--then judge the quality of the student's work based on an agreed-upon set of criteria.

This new form of assessment is most widely used to directly assess writing ability based

on text produced by students under test instructions. (Sun-Geun Back, Eun-Hui Hwang,

2005)

Research suggests that learning how and where information can be applied should

be a central part of all curricular areas. Also, students exhibit greater interest and levels of

learning when they are required to organize facts around major concepts and actively

construct their own understanding of the concepts in a rich variety of contexts.

Performance assessment requires students to structure and apply information, and thereby

helps to engage students in this type of learning. Performance assessments should be

based on the curriculum rather than constructed by someone unfamiliar with the

particular state, district or school curriculum. This allows the curriculum to "drive" the

test, rather than be encumbered by testing requirements that disrupt instruction, as is

often the case. Research shows that most teachers shape their teaching in a variety of

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ways to meet the requirements of tests. Primarily because of this impact of testing on

instruction, many practitioners favor test reform and the new performance assessments.

Performance tasks should be "worth teaching to"; that is, the tasks need to present

interesting possibilities for applying an array of curriculum-related knowledge and skills.

The best performance tasks are inherently instructional, actively engaging students in

worthwhile learning activities. Students may be encouraged by them to search out

additional information or try different approaches, and in some situations, to work in

teams.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate whether performance assessment

increases educational value in teaching-learning activities using a quasi-experimental

research design. In this research, the three measurement criteria of educational value

are suggested as ‘improvement & advancement,’ ‘sincerity & enthusiasm,’ and

‘individuality & wholeness.’ A pre-test will be administered to 4 classes (156 students)

in 11th grade. Classes will be divided into an experimental group (2 classes, 79

students) and a control group (2 classes, 77 students), according to the pre-test results.

Only the experimental group will be involved in the performance assessment for 9

weeks. The results of this study will show whether performance assessment has a

positive effect on the educational value of teaching-learning activities in Saint

Vincent’s College, Senior High School Department.

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 Educational Value

Performance Assessment

Improvement Sincerity Individuality

and and and
Advancement Enthusiasm Wholeness

Figure 1. Theoretical Framework of the Study

Shown in Figure 1 is the schema that represents the theoretical framework of the

study. It shows that the study aims at demonstrating whether the performance assessment

increases the educational value in teaching-learning activities in terms of: 1. improvement

and advancement; 2. Sincerity and enthusiasm; and 3. Individuality and wholeness.

The box containing the word performance assessment is highlighted to show that

this is the focus of the study. An arrow up is pointing to educational value to demonstrate

that the study of performance assessment as a quasi-experimental research is studying

whether there is an increase in educational value of teaching-learning activities. An arrow

down is pointing to the three suggested measurement criteria of educational value.

3
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The main aim of this study is to investigate comprehensively, whether or not

performance assessment based teaching-learning activities create more educational value

in comparison to the traditional teaching-learning activities that are not performance

assessment based. The reason for selecting a performance assessment based teaching

learning activity, as the subject of study, is that there are many theoretical studies that

emphasize the settlement and extension of performance assessment, but there are few

studies that compare empirically and comprehensively performance assessment based

teaching-learning activities to that which are not performance assessment based in

Philippines. For this study, ‘educational value’ is defined as the value which can divide

certain activities as educational, or not educational, and three measurement scales for the

three criteria of educational values were developed: the 'improvement & advancement'

scale (i.e. science achievement test), the 'sincerity & enthusiasm' scale, and the

'individuality & wholeness' scale. By using the measurement scales, the question as to

whether the performance assessment based teaching-learning activities create more

educational value or not will be examined.

SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

In this research, the three measurement criteria of educational value are suggested

as ‘improvement & advancement,’ ‘sincerity & enthusiasm,’ and ‘individuality &

wholeness.’ A pre-test will be administered to 4 classes (156 students) in 11th grade.

4
Classes will be divided into an experimental group (2 classes, 79 students) and a control

group (2 classes, 77 students), according to the pre-test results. Only the experimental

group will be involved in the performance assessment for 9 weeks. The results of this

study will show whether performance assessment has a positive effect on the educational

value of teaching learning activities in schools.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study will contribute to making the characteristics of performance assessment

clear and to further establish the settlement of performance assessment in Saint Vincent’s

College- Senior High School and elsewhere.

Specifically, this study will benefit the following in different ways:

To the Teachers. This study will help the teachers reinforce the use of

performance assessment.

To the Students. This study will make it clear to students that the teaching

component performance assessment will affect a lot not only their academic performance,

but everything as a whole, in a positive way.

To the School. This study will motivate the school to encourage the improvement

of performance assessment implementation.

To the Future Researchers. This study will benefit the future researchers in a

way that they will have an idea whether the modern teaching strategy performance

assessment increase the educational value of the teaching learning activities.

5
DEFINITION OF TERMS

Performance assessment. This is a form of testing that requires students to

perform a task rather than select an answer from a ready-made list.

Educational value. This is defined as the value which can divide certain

activities as educational, or not educational, and three measurement scales for the three

criteria of educational values were developed: the 'improvement & advancement' scale

(i.e. science achievement test), the 'sincerity & enthusiasm' scale, and the 'individuality &

wholeness' scale.

Teaching-learning activity. This is a technique adopted by a teacher to

emphasize his or her method of teaching through activity in which the students

participate rigorously and bring about efficient learning experiences.

Quasi-experimental research. This is an empirical study used to estimate

the causal impact of an intervention on its target population without random assignment.

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 CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents the reviews of related literature relevant to the present

investigation.

Education can be defined as a specific human activity in order to increase

educational value through the interaction between teacher and learner. Educational value

can be in turn defined as the characteristics that are desirable and essential to education.

The educational value is conceptually independent of other values such as moral value,

economic value, aesthetic value, political value, etc. (Baek, 2000a; Broudy, 1952;

Spranger, 1930; Taylor, 1961). The three criteria for evaluating educational value were

suggested as follows; ‘improvement & advancement,’ ‘sincerity & enthusiasm,’ and

‘individuality & wholeness' (Baek, 2000a; Korea Ministry of Education, 1997). In this

respect, ‘improvement & advancement’ was defined as increasing academic achievement

in various areas. ‘Sincerity & enthusiasm’ was defined as attending sincerely and

enthusiastically in teaching and learning activities. ‘Individuality & wholeness’ was

defined as accepting unique personality of each other and pursuing to be a whole person.

These kinds of measurement criteria are related to each other, but are independent

conceptually (Baek, 2000a).

Educational testing has traditionally focused on the technical aspects of

measurement rather than the educational value of certain teaching-learning activity in

Philippines. Objective multiple-choice item format tests were widely used to examine the

student’s achievement in schools. Even though the higher-order thinking skills involved

7
in such things as drawing inferences, analyzing text, or demonstrating a deep

understanding of a domain can be measured by objective multiple-choice item format

tests, it is very difficult to write multiple-choice exam questions that assess the higher-

order thinking skills (Glaser, Lesgold, & Lajoie, 1987; McMillan, 2004). As a result, a

large proportion of the items on an achievement test measure only factual knowledge in

some countries. These tests fail to show understanding or to appraise the knowledge

structure of the cognitive processes underlying differential performance in specific fields

or domains of study (Baek, 1994; KMOE, 1997). In other words, such tests are designed

to determine who the biggest information ‘container’ is, but are not designed to determine

how one becomes an expert or how one's competence can be improved. Therefore,

multiple-choice exams are inadequate for providing an understanding of the instructional

and learning processes. In addition, they are insufficient for prescribing remedies or other

instructional interventions. This history of testing has had very little effect on increasing

educational value in teaching-learning activities in Korea (Baek, 2000b). In order to solve

these problems, many educators have been interested in performance assessment, rather

than multiple-choice tests. They have been interested in performance assessment for a

number of reasons: (a) to improve learning and understanding; (b) to develop teaching

strategies for individualized instruction; (c) to express the idea that people should learn

how to apply what they know; (d) to foster student’s acquisition of authentic cognitive

performance within a learning domain; (e) to look beyond standardized tests for ways of

sampling students’ performance that are more closely linked to instruction; (f) to enhance

student’s self-awareness and self-regulative learning; (g) to integrate teaching, learning,

and assessment in the classroom (Bae, 2000; Baek, 2000b; Baron & Boschee, 1995;

8
Darling- Hammond, Ancess, & Falk, 1995; Herman, Aschbacher, & Winters, 1992;

McMillan, 2004; Sternberg, 1991; Wiggins, 1989). Many educators expect that if

performance assessment is appropriately implemented within teaching-learning activities,

it will increase the educational value more than traditional multiple-choice tests do (Baek,

2000a; KMOE, 1997).

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 CHAPTER 3

THEORIES AND METHODS

This chapter presents the theories and methods to be employed in the analysis,

design and development of the research study. It involves discussion on the proposed

conceptual framework, and the methodology and approaches to be used.

EXISTING THEORIES AND IDEAS ASSOCIATED

Performance assessment was introduced in Asian countries’ elementary schools,

middle schools, and high schools officially in late 1990s (KMOE, 1998; National

Institute of Educational Evaluation, 1996). After the introduction, the ASEAN Ministry

of Education, and many other organizations, undertook continuous studies and efforts to

establish and expand performance assessment. Additionally, many experts have been

studying the understandings, practical uses, problems, and improvement methods

regarding performance assessment (Bae, 2000; Baek, 2002b; Baek et al., 1998; Kim,

2000; KSEE, 2000; Lee et al., 1998; Paek, 1999). However, the majority of those studies

are theoretical reviews and only a few studies are empirical studies. Those empirical

studies show that performance assessment has had positive effects on the improvement of

students’ intellectual and emotional abilities in areas such as achievement, learning

attitude, creativity and inquiry ability, etc. (Bae, 2001; Cho et al., 2001; Han et al., 2000

No, 2000; Park & Baik, 2000). Even though those empirical studies show some evidences

about the educational value of performance assessment, many people still believe that

10
there is no distinct evidence of educational value in performance assessment.

Additionally, only a part of educational value, i.e., only one or two criteria of educational

value, are used as research variables in those studies.

11
CONCEPTUAL DIAGRAM

Educational Value

Performance Assessment

Improvement Sincerity Individuality

and and and
Advancement Enthusiasm Wholeness

Figure 1. Theoretical Framework of the Study

Shown in Figure 1 is the schema that represents the theoretical framework of the

study. It shows that the study aims at demonstrating whether the performance assessment

increases the educational value in teaching-learning activities in terms of: 1. improvement

and advancement; 2. Sincerity and enthusiasm; and 3. Individuality and wholeness.

The box containing the word performance assessment is highlighted to show that

this is the focus of the study. An arrow up is pointing to educational value to demonstrate

that the study of performance assessment as a quasi-experimental research is studying

whether there is an increase in educational value of teaching-learning activities. An arrow

down is pointing to the three suggested measurement criteria of educational value.

12
METHODOLOGY AND APPROACHES

Subjects

For this study, three pre-tests will be administered to 4 classes (156 students) in

11th grade. Classes will be divided into an experimental group (2 classes, 79 students)

and a control group (2 classes, 77 students). The same teacher will teach all students in

order to control teacher variability, but only the students in the experimental group will

participate in the performance assessment based teaching-learning activities for nine

weeks. After nine weeks, three post-tests will be administered to both the experimental

group and control group.

Development of Measurement Scales

The three criteria for evaluating educational value are suggested as ‘improvement

& advancement’, ‘sincerity & enthusiasm’, and ‘individuality & wholeness’. Three

measurement scales will be developed: the ‘improvement & advancement’ scale, the

‘sincerity & enthusiasm’ scale, and the ‘individuality & wholeness’ scale. In this

research, the procedure for quantitatively developing each measurement scale is as

follows:

‘Improvement & Advancement’ Scale

In order to measure students’ ‘improvement & advancement’, achievement tests

for midterm and final exams will be developed. To make these test items, a pilot test will

be administered to 100 11th grade students. Through the analysis of the pilot test results,

some items that have high or low correct-answer rates and low discrimination indices will

be deleted while others will be partially revised, if necessary. Two teachers shall examine

13
the finalized items. Items for the midterm and final exams will be made respectively.

Each exam will have 30 items that will consist of 10 knowledge items, 10 understanding

items and 10 application items, and full marks totaled to 100 points. To check the

reliability of these achievement tests, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients will be used. To

establish the validity of items, two teachers need to examine test items.

‘Sincerity & Enthusiasm’ Scale

In order to measure students’ sincerity and enthusiasm, the ‘sincerity &

enthusiasm’ scale will be developed.

A pilot test will be administered to 100 11th grade students. Through analysis of

the pilot test results, 20 items will be selected among 30 preliminary items. The scale’s

scores range between 20 and 100. To establish the content validity of the ‘sincerity &

enthusiasm’ scale, a series of interviews with a professor and graduate students in the

department of education specializing in educational measurement and evaluation shall be

conducted.

In addition, factor analysis (principal component analysis with varimax

orthogonal rotation) will be used to identify factorial validity (or construct validity) of the

instrument.

‘Individuality & Wholeness’ Scale

In order to measure students’ individuality and wholeness, the ‘individuality &

wholeness’ scale will be developed. A pilot test will be administered to 100 11th grade

students. Through analysis of the pilot test results, 20 items will be selected among 30

preliminary items. The scale’s scores range between 20 and 100. To establish the content

validity of the ‘sincerity & enthusiasm’ scale, a series of interviews with a professor and

14
graduate students in the department of education specializing in educational measurement

and evaluation will be conducted. In addition, factor analysis (principal component

analysis with varimax orthogonal rotation) will be used to identify factorial validity (or

construct validity) of the instrument.

15