OUTCOMES OR PRINCIPLES?
Curriculum documentation for assessing student learning in drama.
Frank McKone
Canberra, 2006
Summary
In the early 1990’s outcomes-based curriculum was introduced generally in school education. Outcomes were supposed to be descriptions of discrete elements of a subject area which could be said to have been learned or not learned by any particular student, thus providing a system for assessing a student’s achievement.
The reason for this development in curriculum design was that the earlier approach had usually been to describe in brief form what was to be taught (that is, the content of the course), to tick off content items as they were taught, and to provide methods of assessment (such as tests, essays, practical exercises) but rarely with an explicit rationale connecting these elements of the design.
My work during the 1980s and 1990s sought to find a curriculum design for drama which escaped the weaknesses of the traditional approach, but did not accept the new outcomes approach, which seemed to fail to appreciate the subtleties of creative arts teaching and learning. Ticking off outcomes achieved does not solve core assessment issues, some of which arise from the misuse of statistics and some of which concern the qualities of the learning which are not revealed by an outcomes-based system.
This paper offers a Drama Knowledge – Personal Development Flexible Matrix assessment system developed from a method originally used at Hawker Secondary College (Canberra, Australian Capital Territory) compared with recent outcomes based approaches, with the intention of stimulating a new discussion of drama assessment now that outcomes have had a run of more than a decade.
The Hawker College Model
The following picture describes the progress a student might make in their learning in drama over the period of two years 11 and 12 (age 16 to 18). The original conception was of a set of five drawers which contained, metaphorically, elements of costume or props which the student would display in their work. A second diagram shows more detail.
Fig. 1 – Drama Knowledge: Central Concepts (Hawker College 1994)
This picture was never published in the formal documentation, though the concepts for assessing student learning were written into the school-based curriculum by 1992. In the 1994 version of the course documentation, just before the new language of outcomes-based national frameworks was imposed on us by the ACT system, we described these concepts as follows:
It is now [the writers’] view that distinctions between the aims of teaching theatre knowledge, theatre skills, and personal development skills are not appropriate. The evaluations show that it has been the integration of these areas of learning which has been the course’s strength. The previous course document was unclear on this point where it separated areas in the assessment process despite its stated aim of integrating students’ learning experience.
In developing the Drama Assessment Profile [see details later], a way has been found to assess a student’s achievement in a form which links assessment items to the five types of drama knowledge.
This has been done by considering learning in Drama as falling into two domains which are interlinked.
Key Area 1 is Drama Knowledge.
Key Area 2 is Personal Development.
Five types of Drama Knowledge are proposed. Each has a focus on an identifiable area of learning in Drama: playing in role; working in a group; communication with the body; the elements of theatrical design; the transmission and creation of theatrical culture.
Each of the five types of drama knowledge involve the student in operating in physical, aesthetic and cognitive intellectual modes. Each type of drama knowledge draws upon the student’s personal resources and cultural learning.
In this way the course is an effective format for teaching students of widely varying intellectual qualities, as is required in a fully comprehensive school such as Hawker College….Learning in these five types of drama knowledge requires a driving force which motivates students to develop higher levels of intellectual understanding of the drama/theatre process. At Years 11 and 12 this learning is essential to give all students seeking further education an opportunity to enter their appropriate pathway: into degree courses, professional diploma and associate diploma courses, and specialist [technical and further education] courses.
The driving force is supplied in Key Area 2. Personal Development incorporates three developmental levels: Action, Personal Relevance [labelled “Self” in Figures 1 and 2] and Making Meaning.
At the Action level, the student’s intellectual level is essentially descriptive.
At the Personal Relevance level, the student is developing an intellectual capacity to see relationships between dramatic devices and themes essentially from their personal perspective. The group methods emphasised in negotiating drama activities on the basis of the student’s own knowledge and interests provide the power which motivates students and drives them out of the Action level.
At the 16 to 18 year age level, there is a strong need for the development of personal identity. This Drama course draws upon that need. In the process both learning of drama knowledge and personal development takes place, and is felt by the student to be an integrated experience.
For many students the Personal Relevance level is a high achievement, but for those seeking tertiary entrance, reaching Making Meaning is necessary. At this level, students develop the analytical thinking which enables them to place their personal experience into the context of the wider world, including the world of theatre traditions and theory. The power needed to cause students to stretch their intellectual powers is provided by combining students with greater and less drama experience in the same classes and expecting the more experienced students to take a greater leadership role as they progress through the course. This approach motivates the students because it empowers them. Their intellectual development is an object to which they become committed as they take genuine responsibility for the success of the drama work which they plan, design and execute for the personal benefit of their peers. To be successful at Making Meaning, the student must learn the culture of theatre and drama and learn to articulate their knowledge clearly.
(McKone, et al. 1994)[The major credit for writing this section of the document must go to David McClay and Jenny Brigg.]
Fig. 2 – Drama Knowledge: Details of Concepts (Hawker College 1994)
In this picture, imagine, on the left hidden end, that there are five large brass handles, those curly ones which lie flat but hinge out for you to give a good tug to.
When a student new to the course first approaches our mystic drawers, they are not aware of the labels we can see in invisible ink on the outside. They choose a handle and give it a tug, say, Body, the middle drawer. When they look in, the left compartment might have some tools: a pen, say, and a sword – this is about Doing. The centre compartment may have a hat – this is about Being. The right compartment may have a puppet – this is about Relationship. What this student may find is not predetermined by any teacher, though presumably is influenced by this student’s past experiences of drama.
Our new student chose to tug the drawer out only as far as the first set of compartments. They could have pulled harder and found the next set. This is where they become active rather than just looking. In the Body drawer, for example, they would find themselves Breathing, Moving and Voicing while Doing things with their “sword”, wearing their “hat” rather Self-consciously, and working their “puppet” (which includes relating to other people) in imitative or conventional ways – following rather than providing leadership. Already you can see that the “drawers” and “compartments” are not as separate as our diagram may suggest. However, it is not difficult to say, of this student (or an actor in rehearsal), that their Body work is quite limited in quality. Of course, in an educational setting, the teacher has a function, after recognising the student’s low level of initiative, to provide situations which may help them grow.
As time goes along and the student has more experience to build on, working in a positive atmosphere of encouragement, they may tug out the Body drawer to the next set of compartments where they find themselves Enjoying the Breathing, Moving and Voicing and in doing so begin to find that they Value the experience for Themselves (Connecting the Doing with the Self). Their involvement becomes Sincere, Intuitive and they begin to take the Initiative with more originality.
Of course, this student may not have tugged other drawers out to the same level of compartments at the same time. It is likely that they may display the Self level in Body and Group, and yet be at the Action level in Role, while being at the higher end of Self beginning to show leadership in Making Meaning in Design. Yet their putting their work into its cultural context (depending on what this entails in your activity) may still involve Collecting more than Using (or interpreting) conventional elements of their culture, rather than Creating cultural artefacts. This might describe the “good” drama student who may never become a very good actor, yet find an effective place in theatre later in life. I can think of one of my students who showed this kind of mix during Year 11, then in Year 12 clearly moved along in the Culture, Design and Group drawers, later becoming a sought-after professional stage manager after completing a university Theatre/Media degree.
The aim was to encourage everyone to become au fait with all five drawers, describing what they had learned, articulating their understanding in each of the five types of knowledge. The principle behind this course is that the curriculum documentation is concerned with describing and organising the processes of learning in the subject.
An Outcomes-Based Comparison
In the next document, from The Block Team, Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, Cambridge (Boston), USA, you will see the more common kind of curriculum document, in which activities, content and concepts which the student is expected to learn are described.
Contemporary Drama Project
Description: The students receive this as their introduction & description:
Description: You have been chosen to be part of the production company that will present a play for consideration for the upcoming season at Cambridge Repertory Theatre. Each group has been assigned a play that fits into the category of contemporary drama (written approximately in the last 25 years). You will present the proposal for your play to the class as if you were presenting it to the board of directors of the CRT.
When presenting the proposal to the “Board of Directors”, the proposal must contain certain elements of production in order for the play to be considered. Each proposal will include a synopsis of the story, background of the playwright, elements of design both in set and costume and a description of the theme and style. In order to give the panel a preview of the play in performance, a staged reading from the play will also be included in your presentation. You must persuade the panel that your play would be an asset to their season. Unify your proposal with a clear vision and concept of the play.
Grade Level(s): Middle School, High School, College, Adult Education
Topic(s) Addressed: Language Arts, Theater, Throughlines, Acting & Play Study:
1.Why is it necessary for artists creating theatre to collaborate and how can we establish trust and allow risk-taking?
2. How does the art created for live theatre performance differ from other forms of artistic expression?
3. What are the skills necessary to work alone and with others in reading a script and rehearsing scenes from a play independently?
4. How can the skills of analyzing a text or play deepen its performance value?
5. What is involved in the process of transferring a scripted work to live performance?
6. How do elements of genre and style distinguish theatre of an historical period and how have they evolved over time?
Generative Topics - Contemporary Drama
Students will explore a variety of contemporary plays that represent diverse writing styles, socio-economic and cultural perspectives, as well as acting approaches appropriate to each play.
The plays explored are:
"Fences" by August Wilson
"Beauty Queen of Leenane" by Martin McDonagh
"How I Learned to Drive" by Paula Vogel
"Zoot Suit" by Louis Valdez
"'Night, Mother" by Marsha Norman
"Angels in America" by Tony Kushner
Unit Level Understanding Goals
- Modern Drama
Students will understand how contemporary drama in the 20th century theatre broke free from period conventions of the past to create new & diverse forms of drama. This period in the development of theater allows theater artists to define their artistic style. This individual take on the art form is now the norm, rather than the exception. Artists feel free to borrow from past traditions, but create their own style based on what and how they want to express their ideas.
- Differences
Students will understand major differences between the four playwrights in terms of writing and acting styles.
- Team Work
Students will understand that effective theatrical productions orchestrate the expertise of many specialists working in close creative, technical, and logistical collaboration.
- The Proposal
Students will understand the role and responsibilities of producers and artistic directors.
- Performances of Understanding:
Culminating performance
Students will present a proposal to their peers acting as the "Board of Directors" of a theater company. The proposal must contain certain elements of production in order for the play to be considered. Each proposal will include a synopsis of the story, background of the playwright, elements of design both in set and costume and a description of the theme and style. In order to give the panel a preview of the play in performance, a staged reading from the play will also be included in the presentation. The student must persuade the panel that their play will be an asset to the season. The proposal must have clear vision in concept of the play. (Kniest, et al. 2005)
This is the first part of the document presented by The Block Team using the Collaborative Curriculum Design Tool developed by the Harvard University School of Education (http://learnweb.harvard.edu/ccdt/) . It is a unit description rather than a complete curriculum document covering a course containing units. However it is a valuable study for us, because this kind of document begins with content and activities, leaving the underlying concepts of learning in the subject to be implied. This is the case with most curriculum documents I have seen in most subjects, especially when I worked for some time as an assistant curriculum coordinator. The Contemporary Drama Project documented here is very clear about what students will be asked to do and what they are expected to learn, but the underlying processes are assumed.
However, further through the document, the writers quote the particular statements from the Massachusetts State Framework which they have selected as appropriate to their project.
State Frameworks
Pulled from the Massachusetts State Frameworks:
1.7 Create and sustain a believable character throughout a scripted or improvised scene
1.8 Make and justify choices on the selection and use of properties and costumes to support character dimensions
1.9 Use physical acting skills such as body alignment, control of isolated body parts, and rhythms to develop characterizations that suggest artistic choices
1.10 Use vocal acting skills such as breath control, diction, projection, inflection, rhythm, and pace to develop characterizations that suggest artistic choices
1.11 Motivate character behavior by using recall of emotional experience as well as observation of the external world
1.12 Describe and analyze, in written and oral form, characters’ wants, needs, objectives, and personality characteristics
1.13 In rehearsal and performance situations, perform as a productive and responsible member of an acting ensemble (i.e., demonstrate personal responsibility and commitment to a collaborative process)
2.1 Identify what drama is and how it happens
2.2 Read plays and stories and identify characters, setting, and action
2.6 Identify literary characteristics of the dramatic script, including elements of dramatic structure, conventions, and format used in writing material for the stage; identify forms such as comedy and tragedy
2.7 Read plays and stories from a variety of cultures and historical periods and identify the characters, setting, plot, theme, and conflict
2.11 Read plays from a variety of genres and styles; compare and contrast the structure of plays to the structures of other forms of literature
2.12 Demonstrate an understanding of the playwright as a collaborating artist who works with the director, actors, designers, and technicians
4.1 Collect, make, or borrow materials that could be used for scenery, properties (props), costumes, sound effects, and lighting for informal classroom presentations
4.2 Visualize environments and arrange the physical playing space to communicate mood, time, and locale
4.3 Recognize and understand the roles and responsibilities of various technical personnel in creating and producing a theatrical performance
4.4 Read and analyze a play for its technical requirements, identifying points in the script that require the addition of a technical element
4.5 As a member of a production crew, select and create elements of scenery, properties, lighting, and sound to signify environments, and costumes and makeup to suggest character
4.6 Draw renderings, floor plans, and/or build models of sets for a dramatic work and explain choices in using visual elements (line, shape/form, texture, color, space), and visual principles (unity, variety, harmony, balance, rhythm)
4.7 Create a sound environment, composed, live, or recorded, for a dramatic work and explain how the aural elements meet the requirements of and enhance the overall effect of the text
4.8 Demonstrate an understanding of the relationships among scenery, properties, lighting, sound, costumes, and make-up in creating a unified theatrical effect for a dramatic work
4.9 Describe characteristics of theatre technology and equipment based on a tour of a high school or professional theatre
4.12 Conduct research to inform the design of sets, costumes, sound, and lighting for a dramatic production. For example, students select a play from a particular historical period, genre, or style and conduct research using reference materials such as books, periodicals, museum collections, and the Internet to find appropriate examples of hairstyles, furnishings, decorative accessories, and clothing.
4.13 Demonstrate an understanding of the interrelationship between the technical aspects of production and the on-stage performers
Here you can see that all the five types of drama knowledge identified in the Hawker College 1994 course document are clearly present in this 2005 document from Boston, USA. However, the outcomes-based framework statements form what seems to be an eclectic list which could be added to or subtracted from at will. The framework does not provide a sense of organisation of basic principles, and so to me doesn’t seem to be an effective “framework”.
This project is seen as appropriate for Middle School teenagers, older teenagers, young adults in higher education and adults with any level education. Like the 1994 Hawker College course, problems may arise when it comes to assessment, particularly where participants may be expected to receive grades; in this case because there is no structure in the framework to establish expectations (which might well be very different for different groups across the range suggested) nor to lay out a direction for achievement of the many outcomes.
Outcomes-Based Assessment
In some outcomes-based frameworks, each outcome is ticked or crossed according to whether the student has done what was described or not, and the ticks added up (or the ticks minus the crosses) to calculate a grade. But just think for a short time about a framework outcome like No 2.1 from the Massachusetts State Framework:
2.1 Identify what drama is and how it happens
Some people may find and quote a definition and descriptions by rote learning, while others may evolve their own definition and ideas about the process from real experience. Do both students get a tick?
Even for an outcome like
4.1 Collect, make, or borrow materials that could be used for scenery, properties (props), costumes, sound effects, and lighting for informal classroom presentations the problem will not go away. A 12 year old student may successfully do this task, but not to same effect as an 18 year old; while the 18 year old who does this in the same way as a 12 year old might, is not on a par with a peer who creates a stunning design.
None of this is to say, of course, that the Contemporary Drama Project is not an exciting and very worthwhile activity. Though much is written as if it is teacher centred, or at least teacher initiated, the journals which form a later part of the on-line document show that there is a great deal of negotiation going on and the teacher is responding to students’ decisions about what they should do and what they think. On November 10, 2005, the teacher reports, as students work on creating PowerPoint™ presentations for the “Board of Directors” that the Librarian “has an aide helping which is great. The two students who have a harder time are asking for her assistance, which is making the process flow for everyone.” And she notes “Some kids are asking some really good questions.”
At a later stage the teacher records
What sticks out in my mind is the detailed description of the assignment, the journals and the constant on task demand set upon them made the caliber of work much stronger than in the past. I have done this project for three years now & feel this was by far the highest quality work thus far.
In this analysis, the teacher is judging the students’ achievements, her own achievement, and the nature of the curriculum design. Good teachers do all these constantly, and need to be given the independence and responsibility for their work which encourages reflection which leads then to development, new ways of doing things and improved results. This teacher’s art was much more extensive than passing on elements of culture to her students. She has created a curriculum document which works as a highly successful script for her action as a teacher. She is author, director and performer, and seems to have successfully played her role, since her school and system have accepted her continuing this project over three years.
What she has achieved is to provide a structure for the content of the activity which necessarily entails students making choices and learning through problem solving. Though on paper the choices seem limited, from the students’ point of view there is a freedom in working out how to fulfil their responsibility – remembering, of course, that the whole exercise is a dramatic fiction. Yet the learning is real, both about the plays, playwrights and American theatre and equally about the drama process in playing out the roles, as presenters at one time and as “Board of Directors” members at other times. As a curriculum model there is great strength in this project, according to the needs of the students and the expectations of the frame in which the teaching is being done.
Flexible Matrix Assessment
The model we developed at Hawker College will need much reworking for assessing drama learning in younger and older students, or for people engaged in drama outside the formal education system. However, it was designed to take a great deal of stress off the teacher. It is based on the two Key Learning Areas which we called Drama Knowledge and Personal Development.
By taking the side of the set of drawers in our original Figs. 1 and 2, we can create a table with two dimensions:
Fig. 3 BASIC DRAMA ASSESSMENT TABLE
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Action Self Making Meaning
DRAMA KNOWLEDGE
Role
Group
Body
Design
Culture
GRADE LEVELS
This is the generic model. There are several ways you can easily modify it to suit your needs.
For example, suppose you are teaching a specialist drama / theatre arts course to students who have already been selected for entry and are all young adults. Perhaps this is at US College level or at Year 12 in a Performing Arts Specialist School in New South Wales, Australia. You would probably want to modify the table something like this:
Fig. 4 MODIFIED DRAMA ASSESSMENT TABLE (Specialist Young Adults)
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Action Self Making Meaning
DRAMA KNOWLEDGE
Role
Group
Body
Design
Culture
GRADE LEVELS F E D C B- B B+ A- A A+
In this circumstance, anyone who worked only in the Action level would effectively fail the course. Your curriculum document, mind you, would need to be written in very definite terms to make this clear. No generalised woolly waffle about self-development should appear in the aims of this course. This is a specialised training course and assumes the students are ready for higher level learning and performance.
Another modification might be for a situation where the students might be expected to have a “normal” range, that is, likely to have a statistically normal spread. Despite what many school administrators believe, it is very rare that a single class will have a normal profile, but it may occur if several classes are combined together in a comprehensive school where a wide range of backgrounds and abilities may be assumed among the students in drama.
Fig. 5 MODIFIED DRAMA ASSESSMENT TABLE (Assumed statistically normal group age 16 - 18)
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Action Self Making Meaning
DRAMA KNOWLEDGE
Role
Group
Body
Design
Culture
GRADE LEVELS E D C- C C+ B- B B+ A- A A+
By modifying the expected spread of grades, you can set up a table which is appropriate for different age groups with different assumed backgrounds.
If you want something for a younger group who could not be expected to achieve the Making Meaning level which we thought appropriate for Years 11/12, you could make a different kind of modification – one which will require more research into drama learning than I have managed so far. However I can imagine something like this:
Fig. 6 MODIFIED DRAMA ASSESSMENT TABLE (Assumed statistically normal group age 8 - 12)
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Action / Engaged Observation Self Making Meaning
DRAMA KNOWLEDGE
Role
Group
Body
Design
Culture
GRADE LEVELS E D C B A- A A+A++
If grades are imposed at this age, which I would personally oppose, you can see how it could be done. But I could suggest that particularly in this age group there may be more to look for in the Action level. Christine Warner's article The Edging in of Engagement in RIDE 2,1 1997 (Warner 1997) raises important questions about the assessment of students' learning in drama.
The distinction she has found between “talkers”, “processors”, “participant observers” and “listeners/outsiders” rings true to my experience with younger teenagers and I suspect should be considered more rigorously from about the age of 8. “Talkers” who are very active are not necessarily learning as much as “participant observers”, who may superficially seem to be less engaged in action. “Processors” may be learning the most if they are able to engage in the action and foresee where the drama should go, and go there. But Warner discovered that even “listeners/outsiders” who effectively refused to take an physically active role, and often seemed to not even participate as observers, were actually learning a great deal, though it took careful management to find out what they understood.
I’m not sure that you could lay out these types of engagement along a continuum, but I have certainly seen elements of these responses to drama at senior secondary level. At the younger age, Warner’s observations may help in deciding where a child’s drama experience might place them in the Action – Self columns – or may suggest that these columns need to be re-thought for earlier stages of drama development. I feel we have long faced the problem that child development in drama has not yet been researched properly, from the days of Peter Slade (running play changes to performance around age 12) or Brian Way (creative play all the way). However, for the immediate situation we cannot wait for the research but must satisfy the requirements for assessment that our societies place upon us.
Before looking closely at how our 2-axis model works to decide scores – i.e. numbers – for each student, I want to suggest how the vertical axis, Drama Knowledge, may also be adjusted to suit your particular curriculum circumstances.
Fig. 7 DRAMA ASSESSMENT TABLE – Adjusted for outcomes based framework
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Action Self Making Meaning
DRAMA KNOWLEDGE
1.9 Use physical acting skills such as body alignment, control of isolated body parts, and rhythms to develop characterizations that suggest artistic choices
2.2 Read plays and stories and identify characters, setting, and action
2.12 Demonstrate an understanding of the playwright as a collaborating artist who works with the director, actors, designers, and technicians
4.7 Create a sound environment, composed, live, or recorded, for a dramatic work and explain how the aural elements meet the requirements of and enhance the overall effect of the text
4.13 Demonstrate an understanding of the interrelationship between the technical aspects of production and the on-stage performers
GRADE LEVELS
In the original Hawker College model, we classed all drama knowledge under only five headings. In Fig.7 I have replaced our headings with a selection of the Massachusetts framework outcomes which the Block Team referred to in their project.
Though a framework with dozens of possible outcomes creates a bigger task than dealing with only a few headings, we can see the principle of assessing a student’s drama knowledge in terms of their personal development has not changed. The outcome 1.9 in Fig.7 is clearly related to our “Body” heading, and a student’s performance can be assessed to be at some point along the Action – Self – Making Meaning axis. Some outcomes-based frameworks, as I have mentioned before, ask for no more than a tick-the-box or Yes/No response from the teacher against each descriptor, but using the 2-axis system allows the teacher to more carefully reflect the student’s quality of drama knowledge.
Calculating Numerical Scores
We can see this more clearly when we come to consider a student’s score as well as grade. We easily recognise that a letter grade A to E is meant to indicate a quality in the student’s work which we can describe. In Fig.5, for example, a C grade indicates that in general over the five types of drama knowledge in the Hawker College course, this student can be expected to be an independent and effective participant in drama activities, ready for continuing on into adult drama at least as an amateur.
But you also know that a single grade is inevitably a compromise which can be shown in Fig.8
Fig. 8 DRAMA ASSESSMENT TABLE – Two different students with the same overall grade.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Action Self Making Meaning
DRAMA KNOWLEDGE
Role S2 S1
Group S2 S1
Body S1 S2
Design S1 S2
Culture S2 S1
GRADE LEVELS C
We can see here that Student 1 works evenly across the drama knowledge categories, while Student 2 shows much more variation. In a tick-the-box outcomes system, it would be difficult to distinguish these two students, while using the 2-axis system it would be easier to describe the particular qualities of each student’s work. This becomes an important matter when writing reports.
For the moment, though, we need to more fully understand how to get numbers into the picture. We can see how something like the compromise in Fig.8 can come about when test scores are used, let’s say in a 20 item maths test. Two students may score 10/20, but the items in the test are each testing a different aspect of the maths course. Student 1 got the first ten right and the last ten wrong, while Student 2 got the last ten right and first ten wrong. They end up with the same score, but what they have each learnt in maths is different. This situation is similar to our two different students getting the same grade in Fig.8.
However, numbers are used in education with many different meanings. Like grades they are used to place students along a line of comparison, but with much finer degrees of distinction. It has become a habit to use only five letter grades, while numbers are infinite. It’s also true that, as science has become established over the past few centuries, numbers have acquired a much greater sense of being true than letter grades. People are very willing to criticise grades, querying what it really means to get a ‘B’, or arguing that the value of grades goes down if a school gives too many ‘A’s. But everyone seems to think they know that 51% means a pass and 85% means a distinction.
What’s really going on with numbers is that they may have one of three meanings. First, a student’s score may be meant to show how far away from or close to perfection their work is. Or it may show how far or close their work is to rock-bottom. Or – and this nowadays is the most common meaning – the score may show only a relative position of the student’s work compared with all the other students in the group (which may be their class, their subject, a group of subjects, within a school, across a local system, across the nation or across the world).
“Perfection” scores are the ones that I have found most teachers believe in. Of course the number a student gets for their work is a compromise just as we saw in Fig.8. However there is one case where two students must be regarded as exactly the same as each other – that is, when they both get 100%. Two students on 99% have 1% differences between them, while two on 50% have 50% differences between them. (This is a bit like genetics: we humans are 2% different from chimpanzees.) You can see, if you follow this logic, that there is something odd going on. Usually people think of the the middle of the road students who might get about 65% as all much the same as each other, OK but not very original; while the ones who get over 90% are the original thinkers who make a difference.
“Perfection” scores cause an inherent problem of conflict between encouraging conformity while expecting originality. It’s no wonder that drama students tend not to do so well in scoring systems “out of 100”.
“Rock-bottom” scores are hardly ever used because most people cannot imagine a score of absolute zero – except, perhaps, in mathematics! – and where there is no fixed top score, no point at which perfection can be reached.
However, a tick-the-box outcomes based assessment system can be seen as a “rock-bottom” scoring system if just the ticks are added up, because the score achieved does indeed show how far away the student’s work is from zero ticks. If scoring is done by adding up ticks and taking away crosses, then the score becomes a kind of compromise between a “perfection” and a “rock-bottom” score, but with the interesting twist that although no-one can get more than full marks, anyone with fewer than half ticks will end up with a minus score. This system ends up pushing scores relatively further down the scale the fewer ticks you get, while pushing other scores relatively further up the scale the fewer crosses you get. The result is a distortion which creates a greater divide between successful and less successful students than seems justified.
To understand “normative” scoring takes a reasonable study of statistics, which involves going against the grain of “perfection” scoring which most people still seem to take as the natural or inherently true way. A “standard score” is a number which tells you how far away, above or below, the student’s score is from the “norm” for the group. This scoring is based on the idea that any group’s scores will gather more around some point in the line of possible numbers, while fewer and fewer will fall further and further above and below that point, theoretically as far as infinity in either direction. The advantage of standard scores is that numbers originally given by individual teachers for small classes, probably on a “perfection” basis, can be standardised and then combined with scores from other classes and even other subjects across faculties within a school, or across schools and education systems.
The most common purpose of all this scoring is to make fine distinctions between students’ results which are used to decide who will be allowed into further education. But unfortunately, because most people still believe in perfection, and numbers have “scientific” backing, scores become a measure of the worth of a person, rather than an unemotive way of making decisions. But since normative scoring is now the norm, at least the 2-axis assessment model for drama can be made to work from the education system’s point of view. It’s a compromise, as all assessment systems are. Here’s how it works.
Fig. 9 DRAMA ASSESSMENT TABLE – Two different students with the same overall grade and scores to suit standardising to a scale with a mean of 65 and standard deviation of 15.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Action Self Making Meaning
DRAMA KNOWLEDGE
Role S2 S1
Group S2 S1
Body S1 S2
Design S1 S2
Culture S2 S1
GRADE LEVELS E E+D- D D+C- C C+B- B B+A- A
65 / 15 SCORES 40/41 50/51 65/66 80/81
In this example, though Student 1 and Student 2 would both receive a C grade, the teacher could make a finer distinction which would probably result in the Student 1 receiving 59, and Student 2 receiving 58.
For the group this table is designed for – a normal secondary college group aged 16-18 – the scores when allocated with these cut-off points between grades are likely to remain fairly stable when they are statistically standardised. You will notice that the standardised mean of 65 is at the cut-off between C and B grades. This is because, from our experience teaching the Hawker College course, most students’ scores gathered around the higher C and lower B grades. Another point to notice is that the tail with relatively few scores in the D and E grades is stretched out much longer than the head in the A grade, despite usually more scores being here than in the tail. This means that the distribution of scores is “skewed”, with its hump around the mean further up the scale than the mid-point.
It’s important to understand that a “normal” distribution does not imply that the mean will be at the mid-point, despite the perfectly balanced picture that most people have in mind for a “normal curve”. A set of standardised scores must reflect the reality of the population concerned. Because, as I have mentioned before, these drama students are self-selected with a special interest in their work, a negative skew (that is, with a longer tail than head) is normal.
In the Australian Capital Territory standardising process, low scores usually stretched down to 30 while high scores stretched up to about 110. The 65/15 scale was originally devised because the numbers that came out looked fairly similar to people’s expectations of a “perfection” set of scores, except that scores could go above 100. In fact, after some years the standardised scale was changed to a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 20, which made the numbers fall rather more like an IQ test, and was an attempt to make teachers, parents and students break out of the 100% perfectionist mode of thinking.
Conclusion
This means that if you are required to produce letter grades and scores, what I have called the Drama Knowledge – Personal Development Flexible Matrix can help. You can adjust the definitions of drama knowledge and increase or decrease the number of rows. You can adjust the width of the personal development columns and add detail within them, or with further research re-define them. You can adjust the spread of grades across the personal development columns to reflect the reality of your teaching/learning situation. You can use a quick “line of best fit” method to arrive at an overall grade. You can attach a range of scores to each grade which is suited to the particular form of scoring your education system uses, so that you have a consistent approach which students come to understand and appreciate, and which should not downgrade drama students compared with students in other subjects when rank order lists are generated for entrance into further education.
You can use the DK-PD Flexible Matrix for any type of drama course from the strongly student-centred to one with defined expected outcomes, or even for a predetermined content course where the aims or objectives can be used for the Drama Knowledge axis.
The Matrix is not a Rose Garden, which I didn’t promise – no assessment system can make a good drama teacher – but I hope you may find some practical use for it.
REFERENCES
Kniest, Monica, Leslie Davis, Brenda Divelbliss, Mary Tegan, and Mila Thigpen. "Contemporary Drama Project (the Block Team)" [Drama Work Unit]. Cambridge Rindge & Latin School. http://learnweb.harvard.edu/ent/design_studio/print_unit.cfm?published_designs_id=461 (requires password log-in). (accessed 2005)
McKone, Frank, David McClay, Jenny Brigg, and Jennie Vaskess. "Drama A and T 1994 Version: Hawker College." Canberra, Australia: ACT Department of Education and Training, 1994.
Warner, Christine. "The Edging in of Engagement: Exploring the Nature of Engagement in Drama." Research in Drama Education Vol 2, No. 1 (1997): p.21.
© Frank McKone, Canberra 2006/2022
