Evaluating Tasks for Performance-Based Assessments: Advice for Music Teachers

Throughout the last decade, much of theprofessional literature about studentassessment has advocated using performance-based assessments to document a student’s level of performance in relation to the objectives of instruction. “Simply put, a performance-based assessment is one in which the teacher observes and makes a judgment about the student’s demonstration of a skill or competency in creating a product, constructing a response, or making a presentation ” (McMillan 2001, p. 196). In using performance-based assessments, the emphasis is on the students ’ ability to apply what they know and are able to do in the performance of a task or in the production of their own work (McMillan). Performance