1997 Arts Assessment Strategies ReportGroup Assessment

As described in the NAEP arts framework, authentic arts performance assessment often means having students collaborate to create and perform. Theatre is by nature a collaborative art form. Collaboration is also important in dance and music. In an assessment context, having students work in pairs and groups is also useful because it can help to diminish the self-consciousness associated with creating and performing in front of strangers.

NAEP therefore developed dance tasks, such as Metamorphosis, and theatre tasks, in which students work together. Because of the prohibitive costs and logistical difficulties associated with recording students singing or playing music together, there were no group tasks in music. However, to assess how well students could sing with others, and to ease student self-consciousness, students were assessed singing along with a recording.

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