What is Performance-Based Education?

The performance-based approach to education enables pupils to use their knowledge and apply skills in realistic situations. It differs from the traditional approach to education in that as well as striving for mastery of knowledge and skills; it also measures these in the context of practical tasks. Furthermore, performance-based education focuses on the process pupils go through while engaged in a task as well as the end product, enabling them to solve problems and make decisions throughout the learning process.

In addition, performance-based education stimulates the development of other important dimensions of learning, namely the affective, social and metacognitive aspects of learning.

Regarding the affective (emotional) aspect of learning, competence-based education motivates pupils to participate in interesting and meaningful tasks. It helps pupils develop a sense of pride in their work, fostering confidence in the target language. Encouraging pupils to experiment with their increasing control of the language alleviates anxiety over “making a mistake.”  This further motivates them to invest in learning the foreign language.

The social aspect of learning is reflected in the peer interaction that performance-based tasks require. Pupils thus develop helpful social skills for life.  Such cooperative work leads to peer guidance and other kinds of social interaction such as negotiating, reaching a consensus, respecting others’ opinions, individual contribution to the group effort and shared responsibility for task completion.

As for the metacognitive aspect of learning (pupils’ thinking about their own learning), skills such as reflection and self-assessment also contribute to the learning process. When teachers require pupils to think about what they are learning, how they learn and how well they are progressing, they develop skills which make them more independent and critical pupils.