Did They Learn It or Just Do It? Product vs. Process Assessment

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Did They Learn It or Just Do It? Product vs. Process Assessment

Educational Psychology · Chapter 8: Assessment, Testing, and Making Sense of ResultsSection 8.4 · lesson 73 of 1008 min · free with a free account

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In this lesson

Product and process assessment, and the rubrics that make either one fair.

  • Distinguish product from process assessment
  • Explain what process data reveal that products hide
  • Compare holistic and analytic rubrics
  • Design an analytic rubric in four steps

Transcript

Everything said in the video, section by section (1,153 words). Read along, or search it.

Assessment, Testing, and Making Sense of Results

Did They Learn It, or Just Do It?

Two students hand in essays of roughly equal quality. One wrote four drafts, asked for help twice, and rebuilt the argument. The other wrote it in one sitting the night before. Product assessment cannot tell those two apart. This section is about what that blindness costs, and what to do about it. We start with product assessment, which is the default everywhere. Then process assessment, and the data it makes visible. Then rubrics, holistic and analytic. And finally a four-step method for building an analytic rubric. One warning before we begin, so the argument stays honest. Process assessment is better in principle, and harder in practice.

Product

Evaluating the Finished Artifact

Product assessment focuses on the final artifact a student produces. The completed essay, or the finished experiment write-up. The end-of-unit poster, or the recorded performance. It evaluates what a student can show at one point in time. And it is genuinely easy to collect, to store, and to score consistently. Most traditional grading systems are built entirely around it. The student submits work. The teacher evaluates it. A grade is recorded. That system is efficient, and there is a real reason it dominates. It provides a snapshot of achievement. One that can be compared across students, and across time periods. Everything that follows is about what that snapshot leaves out.

The Limitation

The Endpoint Is Not the Journey

The limitation of product-only assessment is easy to state. It captures the endpoint, but not the journey. Picture a student who struggled extensively with the material. She sought help, revised multiple times, and produced mediocre work. Now picture a peer who dashed off a polished essay in one sitting. Without ever really grappling with the material at all. The first student may have learned far more than the second. But the grades will say the opposite. If the goal of education is learning, and not just performance, then the process students engage in deserves equal attention. Product assessment carries a second disadvantage as well. It penalizes test anxiety, language barriers, and a bad day.

Process

Evaluating How the Learning Happened

Process assessment examines how students learn. The drafts they produce, and the strategies they employ. The questions they ask, and the mistakes they make and correct. Journals and learning logs are forms of process assessment. So are drafts with revision notes, and think-alouds. So are teacher observations during problem-solving. Here is a concrete example of what that yields. A teacher watches a student approach a multi-step math problem. She notices the student sets up the equation correctly. But then makes arithmetic errors carrying it through. That is enormously actionable, and it is a completely different lesson. And none of it is available from the final answer alone.

Metacognition

Reflection Is Itself the Transferable Skill

Process assessment does something else that is easy to underrate. It develops metacognitive awareness. Consider what a genuine student reflection sounds like. I got confused when I hit fractions, so I drew a visual model. Notice what that sentence records. It records a strategy, and not a result. And strategies are exactly what transfers to new situations. Students who reflect this way build self-monitoring habits. Habits that carry into learning the teacher will never see. Teachers who embed process assessment report a second benefit. Richer understanding of individual students, and more targeted responses.

The Cost

Why Most Teachers Do Not Do This

So why does almost everyone still assess only products? The challenge is logistical, and not theoretical. Process data can be voluminous. And it is genuinely difficult to quantify. It requires thoughtful systems for recording and storing observations. Nobody disputes that watching a student think is informative. The obstacle is scale. A class of thirty generates more observation than one teacher can capture. Not without a deliberate system for capturing it. Which is why the practical answer is balance, not replacement. Keep the product data. Add process data where it changes a decision.

Rubrics

Holistic or Analytic

Whether you assess product or process, rubrics provide the framework. There are two kinds, and they trade off against each other. Holistic rubrics assign a single score, based on overall quality. Readers form an overall impression. Then they place the work in a performance category. They are fast to apply, which is their whole advantage. But they provide very little diagnostic information. Analytic rubrics assign separate scores to multiple dimensions. In writing, the criteria might be thesis, evidence, and organization. Along with style, and mechanics. They take longer to apply, and they buy something specific with that time. Students learn where their strengths are, and what to improve.

Authentic Tasks

When One Score Would Hide the Answer

Authentic assessment usually forces the analytic choice. Authentic tasks mirror real-world applications of knowledge. And real-world tasks are never one-dimensional. Take a student creating a community health campaign. She is being assessed on research quality. And on communication design, and evidence use. And on presentation skills, all at the same time. A single score would obscure which dimensions are strong. And which ones actually need development. One further point about rubrics changes what they are for. When rubrics are shared with students before they begin work, they stop being grading tools and become instructional tools.

Compared

Product, Process, and the Balance

Comparing the two approaches across five dimensions makes the choice clearer. In focus, product means the final artifact. Process means learning behaviors. Balanced means both at once. In data type, product gives you a score or a grade. Process gives you observation notes and drafts. Product's strength is that it is efficient and comparable. Process reveals the thinking behind the work. Product's challenge is that it misses the learning journey. Process is simply hard to quantify. And the balanced approach is time-intensive, which is its honest cost. Product suits summative judgments. Process suits formative guidance. And portfolio systems are where the balanced approach lives.

Classroom Example

Grading the Revision, Not Only the Result

One teacher shows what a process-inclusive policy looks like. Mr. Torres teaches AP English Language. For the synthesis essay unit, he collects far more than an essay. Four drafts. A source annotation. A peer review sheet, a self-reflection, and the final essay. Now here is the scoring rule that makes the whole thing work. Students who show marked improvement earn additional points. Improvement from the first draft through to the final copy. They earn those points even if the final product is imperfect. This policy rewards growth, and encourages genuine revision. It also reduces the all-or-nothing anxiety around writing. That anxiety is exactly what suppresses risk-taking in the first place.

How To

Building an Analytic Rubric

Finally, how to actually build an analytic rubric. There are four steps, and none of them are complicated. First, identify three to six key dimensions of the task. Fewer than three and you are back to a holistic score. More than six and nobody will use it consistently. Second, write performance descriptors for three to four levels. That is three to four levels within each dimension. Third, share the rubric with students before they begin. Fourth, after scoring, highlight the cells describing each student's work. That fourth step is worth dwelling on for a moment. Highlighting turns the rubric itself into the feedback. There is nothing extra to write, and nothing left to interpret.

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FAQ

Questions students ask us

About Did They Learn It or Just Do It? Product vs. Process Assessment

What is the difference between product and process assessment?
Product assessment evaluates the final artifact, such as a finished essay, lab report or performance, while process assessment examines how the student learned, including drafts, strategies, questions and corrected mistakes. Product assessment is efficient and comparable but captures only the endpoint. Process assessment reveals the thinking behind the work but is harder to record and quantify, so many teachers balance the two.
What are examples of process assessment?
Process assessment includes learning journals and logs, drafts with revision notes, think-alouds and teacher observations during problem-solving. For example, a teacher watching a student work a multi-step math problem may notice the equation is set up correctly but arithmetic errors creep in, which calls for a very different lesson than a wrong final answer alone would suggest. Student reflections also build metacognitive awareness.
What is the difference between a holistic rubric and an analytic rubric?
A holistic rubric assigns a single score based on overall quality, which is fast to apply but gives little diagnostic information. An analytic rubric scores multiple dimensions separately, such as thesis, evidence, organization, style and mechanics in writing. Analytic rubrics take longer but show students where their strengths are and what to improve, which suits complex, authentic tasks.
How do you create an analytic rubric?
Start by identifying three to six key dimensions of the task; fewer tends to collapse into a holistic score, and more is hard to apply consistently. Next, write performance descriptors for three to four levels within each dimension. Then share the rubric with students before they begin work. Finally, after scoring, highlight the cells describing each student's work so the rubric itself becomes the feedback.

About the Educational Psychology course

How many college credits is Educational Psychology?
Educational Psychology (Psychology 120) carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
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