Beyond the Bubble Test: How Performance Assessments Support 21st Century Learning

Chapter 2Looking Back: Performance Assessment in an Era of Standards-Based Educational Accountability

Brian Stecher

Performance assessment—judging student achievement on the basis of relatively unconstrained responses to relatively rich stimulus materials—gained increasing favor in the United States in the late 1980s and 1990s. At least one national commission advocated the replacement of multiple-choice tests with performance assessments (National Commission on Testing and Public Policy, 1990); the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) conducted extensive pilot testing of hands-on assessment tasks in science and mathematics (Educational Testing Service, 1987); and performance assessments were adopted by a number of state testing ...