Assessing Performance in Schools: Issues and Practice

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide African educational practitioners with the theoretical platform for performance assessment and to provide suggestions on how to handle the problems associated with assessing performance in schools. Weaknesses and deficiencies in the traditional objective-type and essay-type tests, which have been used to assess students' cognitive behaviours over the ages, have led educational practitioners to advocate for other means of assessing students. The call has been for a move from assessment in the cognitive domain to the psychomotor domain. This paper discusses the strengths and limitations of performance assessment which focuses on students' demonstration of what they can ‘do' or a demonstration of their ‘hands on' activities. Techniques of constructing performance tests and methods of scoring are discussed as well as suggestions on dealing with the problems associated with assessing performance in schools.

Ife Psychologia Vol.13(1) 2005: 123-135