Content Standards. Content standards are broad expectations of what students should know, understand and be able to do at a particular grade level in a certain subject. Science content standards describe the knowledge base of a scientifically literate populace.

Criterion (Criteria). A criterion specifies the attributes of successful or meritorious performance. The term criteria is often interchangeable with rubrics, scoring guidelines, and scoring rubrics.

Criterion-Referenced Approach. A criterion-referenced approach in assessment is used to estimate how much of the content and skills covered have been acquired by the individuals assessed. Performance is judged against a set of criteria rather than in comparison to other individuals tested, as with norm-referenced tests.

Declarative Knowledge. Declarative knowledge is factual or conceptual knowledge.

National Science Education Standards (NSES). The National Science Education Standards are science education content standards for grades K-12 developed by the National Committee on Science Education to provide curricular and assessment guidance to science teaching practitioners throughout the United States.

Norm-Referenced Approach. A norm-referenced approach in assessment is used to estimate how the individuals being assessed compare to other individuals in terms of performance on the test. Individual performance is judged in comparison to other individuals tested, rather than against a set of criteria, as with criterion-referenced tests.

Overall Task Content Area. The overall task content area is the general subject matter covered by the task (e.g., Physical Science, Life Science).

Performance Assessment. Performance assessment "requires students to actively accomplish complex and significant tasks, while bringing to bear prior knowledge, recent learning and relevant skills to solve realistic or authentic problems" (Herman, et al., 1992, p. 2).

Performance Expectations. Performance expectations are task-specific statements that describe what students should do during an assessment.

Procedural Knowledge. Procedural knowledge is knowledge about how to do something.

Reliability. Reliability is the degree to which an assessment or instrument consistently measures an attribute.

Response Mode. The response mode is the technique by which the individual being assessed indicates responses to items (e.g., giving an oral reply, drawing a chart, keying in the answer on a computer keyboard, pointing at the computer screen, writing an essay, filling in a bubble on an answer sheet, putting a checkmark in front of the correct answer, circling a rating).

Rubric. A rubric is the guide used to score performance assessments in a reliable, fair, and valid manner and is generally composed of dimensions for judging student performance, a scale for rating performances on each dimension, and standards of excellence for specified performance levels.

Specific Knowledge Area. The specific knowledge area is the particular subject matter covered by the assessment (e.g., properties of matter).

Targets. Targets are goal statements about expectations for student performance. They specify the knowledge and understanding to be attained and ground all of the decisions concerning the type of assessment, the task design, and the scoring of the exercise. Four types of targets are discussed in this Web site: knowledge targets, reasoning targets, skill targets and product targets.

Task. A performance assessment task allows students to effectively create a sample product or performance that can be observed and judged. Tasks contain information about the administration procedures (e.g., task time, materials, safety concerns), written instructions to help students demonstrate mastery of the skills that will be assessed, and questions to assess student learning.

Validity. Validity in assessment refers to the extent to which test scores or responses measure the attributes they were intended to measure and have the impact that was sought.