PERFORMANCE CRITERIA
Course Proposal Form
EXAMPLE
To promote student learning, be crystal clear about what you want and expect as conditions of achievement of
student learning outcomes. Don't leave performance criteria to chance. If you are clear about performance
criteria, students will be clear of your expectations.
Outcome Name (Indicate the General Education Goal to be measured) CriticalThinking
Outcome Description (General Education Goal Description as defined by CSCC faculty—see Assessment
for Student Learning Handbook or College Catalog)
Critical Thinking involves recognizing, analyzing, and defining problems, drawing logical wellsupported conclusions and testing them against relevant criteria and standards. Critical thinking also
includes examining issues by identifying and challenging assumption (including one’s own),
developing alternative solutions or strategies and evaluating practical and ethical implications.
General Education Outcome (Course outcome mapped to Program Outcome to the
Gen Ed Student Learning Outcome
The student will be able to analyze a situation (either real or hypothetical) to identify a problem.
Assessment Methods (Not tests and quizzes (not a grade or percentage) Focus on integrated learning.
Directly align with students’ learning and previous assessment experiences. Provide opportunity for
students to generate responses as opposed to selecting responses. Provide opportunity for students to
reflect on their performance. What observable behavior or action will you see from your student? What will
the student do? Examples: research papers, book critiques, discussion, lab reports, portfolios, group work,
oral presentations, and more.)
1. The student will use multiple resources to gain additional information regarding the problem.
2. The student will develop a procedure to solve the problem using a sufficient knowledge base.
3. The student will propose a critique of a viable solution to the problem communicate the problem
statement, the solution steps and the eventual outcomes.
“Every assessment is also based on a set of beliefs about the kinds of tasks or situations that will prompt
students to say, do, or create something that demonstrates important knowledge and skills. The tasks to which
students are asked to respond on an assessment are not arbitrary.” National Research Council, Knowing what students know. The
science and design of educational assessment. Washington, DC, National Academy Press, 2001, p. 47.
When will or do you seek evidence? Formative—along the way? For example, to ascertain progress or
development beginning with baseline data. Or, Summative—at the end? For example, to ascertain
mastery level of achievement.
Describe the desired learning achievement. Indicate the specific expectations for the assignment.
You may use narrative from your rubric, check sheet, narrative prompts, etc. This is neither a PERCENTAGE
nor a GRADE. Grades are the faculty evaluation of a student’s performance in a class as a whole. Grades
represent an overall evaluation of student class work, which sometimes involves factors unrelated to specific
student learning outcomes or student knowledge, values or abilities, such as attendance, extra credit, and more.
See CSCC cross-discipline assessment rubrics for each general education goal and outcome.
Assessment is used to describe the student learning outcomes process and refers to the procedure of
determining a student’s level of learning and achievement.
Daugherty.AssessmentforStudentLearning.June2011
PERFORMANCE CRITERIA
The National Center for Research, Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (1996) defines criteria as
"guidelines, rules, characteristics, or dimensions that are used to judge the quality of student performance. Criteria
indicate what we value in student responses, products, or performances."
With performance assessments such as a lab, group project, portfolio, task, or presentation, students need to clearly
know and understand what performance criteria will be used to judge their performance. Although student
interpretations are important, educators need to recognize that on the basis of cultural and environmental norms,
explanations that seem diametrically opposed may be equally defensible or right.
Because this quality of complexity allows performance assessments to mirror real life, educators need to explicitly
include the exact parameters of the responses they want to elicit in each assessment task or problem. (For example,
educators should make sure students know if the writing process--rather than punctuation and grammar--is the
criterion on which performance will be judged, or if a paragraph--as opposed to a few words--is the criterion
response.)
The problem of interpretation differences that result when performance criteria (requirements) are ambiguous is
compounded when students have diverse experiences based on their ethnicity, primary language, or gender. In an
effort to assess higher-order cognitive skills and complex problem solving, educators need to develop appropriate
learning assessments that have no single right answer and in which students' interpretation of information or
evidence is key in defending their solution.
Establishing Meaningful and Intentional Performance Criteria
Don't leave performance to chance and then be disappointed. Be crystal clear about what you want, by when,
and the conditions of satisfaction. If you are not clear about these things, students will not be clear, and
you'll be opening yourself to frustration, disappointment, and poor learning in your course.
Recognize that establishing performance criteria for successful learning is key to ensure that students get the
learning achievement that you expect. This needs to be established at the beginning of course development.
To establish performance criteria, ask, "What are the conditions for achievement? How will we know the project,
task, lab, and report development was successful? How will we know the work has been completed and done
satisfactorily? ¨
For example, when your student completes an assignment, how will the student and faculty member know that the
student learned? What does the faculty need the student to learn, absorb, or implement because of the work he or
she completed? (If you can't determine what the outcome should be, the work was possibly not necessary.)
What factors do we include in performance criteria? Specifics - what you're looking for - specific to the task and
conditions of satisfaction. Metrics - learning outcomes need to be measurable
For example, an accounting student has a report due by the fifth week of the term. The time line is meeting the
deadline of the fifth week (that one is easy), but now the student needs to know what the conditions of satisfaction
are (performance criteria). For this task, there are two conditions (1) all data recorded and (2) zero mistakes. So if
the student meets the deadline but the information is incorrect or incomplete, the conditions of satisfaction have not
been met. Just having an assignment due date of the 5th of next month is not enough.
Here’s where rubrics can play a vital role. If the faculty member will accept levels of achievement on an
assignment, the faculty can indicate what exemplary, excellent, good, poor work “looks like” in a narrative
description, making it clear and visible to the student.
Daugherty.AssessmentforStudentLearning.June2011
Arbitrary Outcomes
Often we create arbitrary learning outcomes that have no substance to them. They are open to interpretation by others and have
no true measurement to them. Some examples of arbitrary outcomes and measurable outcomes
are as follows:
Arbitrary outcomes are not measureable and are open to interpretation. (Business course example)
1. Update the database.
2. Understand the concept of leadership.
3. Create a marketing plan.
4. Hire new people for your task group.
5. Write a quarterly plan for your department and give it to me by early June.
Measurable and Specific Outcomes (examples):
1. Update the database by Friday midnight, of Week Five of Quarter. Include all information from the other three related
databases and scrub the data for accuracy with your assigned task group.
2. The organization needs to be constantly looking at succession planning. For this to happen, you as a manager need to be
working on developing your people into leaders. Discuss specifics of who you think has potential and in what areas, and
how you propose strengthening their skills.
3. Create a marketing plan for the web site, which is nothing more than an online brochure. You have $50K for this project.
I'd like a specific plan of what you propose we do, what is the expected ROI on each of our options, and the costs. And I'd
like this completed by July 31.
4. You want to hire two people for your task group. (Scenario) While I'm (the faculty member) not opposed to your hiring
new people, here's what I need from you: job descriptions, a plan for interviewing and hiring (for instance, do you intend to
use a recruiting firm and what is the cost), and milestones for them for the first 30, 60, and 90 days of their employment.
Also, how do you intend to train them or 'bring them up to speed' on the organization's ways of doing things?
5. By June 5 write a plan for your department for the time frame July through September. Included in your plan should be
specific goals and outcomes for you, your team, and other support personnel. Since your area is customer service, how are
you measuring customer service (as an example)?
Why Grades, Percentages, and GPAs are “non measures” as performance criteria
1. Neither course grades nor GPSs are adequate or reliable measures of student learning across a major or program of
study. (Lopez, 1997, “Opportunities for Improvement . . .”).
2. Course grades and GPSs “tell us little of what the student has actually learned in the course” and “very little about what
a student actually knows or what that student’s competencies or talents really are” (Astin, 1991. Assessment for
Excellence, p.11).
3. “Grades are influenced by . . .
a. Institution type and selectivity
b. Students’ major fields of study
c. Class attendance and levels of class participation
d. Course grading policies
e. Predominant mode of instruction
f. Instructors’ experience and academic rank
g. Professorial style, personality, and standards
h. Congruence between teaching and learning styles
i. Department culture.” (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991. How College Affects Students. p. 63).
4.
“Because of these potential confounding influences, it is extremely difficult to make standardized comparisons of
learning based on student grade point average either between or within institutions. Consequently, we have not
considered grades primarily as a measure of knowledge acquisition. Rather, we have chosen to treat grade point
average primarily as a measure of the extent to which the student successfully complies with the academic norms or
requirements of the institution.” (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991. How College Affects Student, p. 63.
Daugherty.AssessmentforStudentLearning.June2011