Vol. 3 No. 3 August 1998

NAEP and Theatre: Framework, Field Test, and Assessment

Abstract: NAEP has developed its first set of assessment tasks

for measuring student achievement in theatre. These tasks

draw on a wide range of dramatic forms and use both paperand-pencil and performance tasks.

In 1992, the Arts Education Consensus Project, sponsored by the National Assessment Governing Board

(NAGB), began an 18-month effort to establish objectives for assessing arts instruction in the nation’s elementary and secondary schools. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) had assessed music education in 1972 and 1978 and visual arts education

in 1975 and 1978. The National Endowment for the

Arts, in collaboration with the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, funded the Arts Education Consensus

Project, enabling it to create the NAEP Arts Education

Assessment Framework.

The Consensus Project1

 identified objectives for arts

education in general and individually for dance, music,

theatre, and the visual arts, in the fourth, eighth, and

twelfth grades. It also developed Assessment Specifications for each of the four arts, setting forth requirements

for the content of the assessments in more detail. NAEP

field-tested the theatre assessment for the fourth and

eighth grades in 1995 and for the twelfth grade in 1997.

In the spring of 1999, NAEP will publish a Field Test

Process Report, on the development, administration, and

scoring of arts tasks for the three grades. The report will

cover all four arts, including theatre.

In 1997, NAEP conducted an assessment of students’

achievement in the arts, for the eighth grade only. NAEP

assessed students in music and the visual arts using a

nationally representative sample of all students, regardless of their background in music or the visual arts. The

theatre assessment was a targeted assessment, limited to

students who would have completed at least 30 class

hours in theatre instruction by the end of the 199697

school year. The students attended schools providing at

least 45 semester hours of classroom instruction in

theatre for eighth graders. The sample for the theatre

assessment was about 2,000 students, in both public and

private schools, enough to obtain statistically valid results. NAEP did not conduct a dance assessment, because there were too few dance programs in schools to

Theatre is rooted in the universal human impulse to play

and to imitate. The NAEP Theatre Field Test and Assessment provide innovative methods for assessing student

achievement in theatre.

NOTE: For reasons of confidentiality, the students shown in this

picture are not NAEP participants.

Photo of 1990 production of “The Children’s Hour” courtesy Living Library

Theatre, Inc., Santa Monica, California
2

allow for an adequate sample. Results of all three assessments, together with samples of arts tasks for all

four arts, will appear in the 1997 Arts Education Report

Card, which will be published in the fall of 1998.

The next two sections of this Focus on NAEP summarize the framework for the theatre assessment, which can

be found in full in the NAEP 1997 Arts Education Assessment Framework. Following these sections will be a

discussion of the theatre field tests.

The Importance of Theatre

Theatre is rooted in the universal human impulse to

play, imitate, create, and share ideas and feelings. A social art form, theatre reveals both the human condition

and the human experience. In both its traditional forms

and the newer media of television and film, theatre

transports players and audience through time and space

without leaving the here and now.

The NAEP Arts Education Assessment Framework is

founded on a vision of a society that believes the arts,

including theatre, are essential for every child’s complete development and education. To be fully educated,

students must be able to draw on artistic experiences and

knowledge as a means of understanding both themselves

and the world around them. The expectation is not that

all students will become professional artists, although

some will. What is expected is that they will have experienced enough of the discipline, the challenge, the joy

of creating in different art forms to intimately understand the human significance of theatre, dance, music,

and the visual arts (see table 1 for guidelines for theatre

assessment).

The Theatre Assessment

Framework: Content and

Processes

The theatre assessment covers both content and processes. Content includes (1) knowledge and understanding of theatre and (2) perceptual, technical, expressive,

and intellectual/reflective skills. Processes include (1)

creating/performing, and (2) responding. While much of

what students know, as well as what they can do, will be

demonstrated through performance, the theatre assessment framework includes a written portion as well. Table 2 sets forth the theatre assessment framework in

brief.

Content

Knowledge means knowing about the art of theatre; its

history, cultural, social, and personal contexts; its forms

and structure, how it creates meaning, and its aesthetic

qualities. Students understand the literary, visual, aural,

oral, kinesthetic, and psychological aspects of a theatrical event. They are able to engage in self-criticism, taking into consideration form and structure, contexts, and

aesthetic responses.

Skills are the abilities associated with the technical, perceptual, and expressive processes of theatre. Included in

this category are such activities as skills required in creating a text, acting, staging, designing, and articulating a

response. Abilities to create, perform, and respond in the

theatre are predicated on the application of both knowledge and skills simultaneously.

Table 1.NAEP Guidelines for Theatre Assessment

Theatre assessment shall

 Affirm theatre as a way of knowing with a unique capacity to

integrate the intellect, emotions, and physical skills.

 Honor theatre as a discrete art form, but also encourage students to see the artistic experience as a unified whole.

 Examine and report on developing abilities of students.

 Connect with students’ real-life experiences of theatre.

 Evaluate students primarily through performance.

 Go beyond quantification to include critical judgment.

 Use background variables to recognize differences and inequities in school resources (large-scale assessments only).

 Address both the processes and products of the theatre, and

expand the public’s awareness of the importance of each.

 Employ a comprehensive vision of theatre education, including what ought to be in theatre education, rather than

simply what is.

 Produce information useful to a variety of audiencesstudents, parents, teachers, administrators, policy

makers, artists, and other community members.

 Sample student performance separately for general and specialized theatre programs (large-scale assessments only).

 Reflect a pluralistic view of theatre education, both in terms

of individual products and the cultural bases of the theatre.

Source: NAEP 1997 Arts Education Assessment Framework, National Assessment Governing Board
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Processes

Creating and Performing are closely linked in theatre.

At the same time, different aspects of theatre call for

different creative processes. All call for imagining, conceiving, and generating. Playwriting requires the use of

all three processes to create character, story, dramatic

actions, and dialogue. Acting involves discovering and

developing emotions and creating a series of actions for

a character. Designing requires discovering, developing,

and organizing an environment. In order to direct, students must analyze a script and develop an interpretation

by organizing the time, place, spaces and rhythms of a

production. Creating in film making and television demand the development and organization of the elements

of theatre as well as the special elements of the medium.

Performing is central to theatre studies. Performing is

the evidence of creating; it is the process viewed and

heard by an audience. Performing is a highly complex

collaborative activity in which the performer is aware of

the audience and fellow performers, responding and adjusting the performance accordingly. The ways of

learning demanded by performance are equally complex,

requiring the interplay of all the processes noted in creating. Performing is impossible to assess through any

other means than through the processes themselves.

Responding includes both students’ reactions as spectators to each other’s work and reflecting on their own

work. They respond to outside artists and performers.

They examine artistic choices in ideas, stories, scripts,

designs, and actions by explaining, describing, clarifying, comparing, and evaluating. They apply their knowledge of the theatre and analytical skills to determine

which elements are successful in a performance; but

responding in theatre is more than analysis. Responding

involves emotional and intuitive behaviors as well. Students become responsive audience members of theatrical

performances, films, and tele-play presentations. They

recognize a variety of theatrical genres and styles and

identify and compare them in theatre, film, and television.

The Field Test Samples

The field test of the NAEP theatre assessment tasks for

grades four and eight were conducted in 1995, while the

twelfth-grade tasks were tested in 1997. A general

Table 2.Theatre Assessment Framework

Processes

Creating/Performing Responding

When creating and performing in theatre, students:

 develop scripts and scenarios;

 make design and technical choices to communicate locale and

mood for dramatic materials for theatre, film, and television;

 develop characters through an acting process; and

 direct by interpreting dramatic texts and organizing time and

people in planning and rehearsing improvised and scripted

scenes.

When perceiving, analyzing, interpreting, and judging works in

theatre, students:

 describe and analyze artistic choices in their own work and

construct meaning;

 describe and compare elements, styles, genre, media, and

dramatic literature;

 place work in context (personal, social, historical, and cultural); and

 evaluate performances as audience and critic.

Content

Knowledge Skills

Applying knowledge of:

Context

personal

social

cultural

historical

Aesthetics

Form and structure

Processes

Applying cognitive, affective, and motor skills, including:

Perceptual

Intellectual/Reflective

Expressive

Technical

SOURCE: NAEP 1997 Arts Education Assessment Framework, National Assessment Governing Board
4

population of students participated in the field tests for

grades four and eight. However, in the twelfth-grade

field test, only students who had participated in inschool theatre classes were included in the sample.

About 2,000 students participated in each of the field

tests. The twelfth-grade field tests were held to evaluate

the validity of the theatre tasks, even though NAEP had

determined that it would not conduct an assessment for

twelfth-grade students.

Theatre Tasks

NAEP used two types of assessment tasks in the field

tests: paper-and-pencil tasks and performance tasks. Assessment tasks were prepared by the Educational Testing Service, under the guidance of a committee of theatre education experts. The fourth-grade field test devoted about 60 minutes to the paper-and-pencil tasks and

1530 minutes to the performance task. The eighthgrade field test devoted 60 and 30 minutes, respectively,

while the twelfth-grade field test devoted 60 minutes

and 6090 minutes, respectively. In all cases, assessment times are approximate only, depending on the specific tasks involved.

The performance tasks assessed the creating and performing aspects of theatre. The paper-and-pencil tasks

assessed students’ abilities to respond to theatre, but

also required them to make and defend a wide variety of

creative decisions as well. To ensure coverage of all aspects of theatrical knowledge, and to lighten the burden

on a given student, NAEP developed a number of different task “blocks,” for both the paper-and-pencil and performance tasks. Students in the sample were assigned at

random to several paper-and-pencil blocks and one performance block.

NAEP performance tasks are designed to be as authentic

as time and resources permit. However, authenticity is

limited by the fact that the assessment tasks must also

offer the same opportunities and the same challenges, in

the same circumstances, for all the students assessed. No

comparison across students is possible without such

standardization. NAEP plans to make available to the

public all tasks, both paper-and-pencil and performance,

that are not covered by copyright.

1. Paper-and-Pencil Tasks

In addition to having students respond to theatrical performances, paper-and-pencil tasks asked students to address such issues as set design, decor, costume, casting,

cinematic techniques, sound effects, and direction. (Examples are drawn throughout from the twelfth-grade

field test.)

Students read excerpts from plays, looked at photographs, posters, and other visual stimuli, and saw video

clips, both from films and from a tape of a live theatrical

presentation. (See table 3 for a breakdown of the kinds

of materials used in the field tests, taken from the ConTable 3.Guidelines for Stimulus Materials for Theatre Tasks

Grade 4 Grade 8 Grade 12

Theatre 10%

 Dramatic Literature

 Children’s Plays

30%

 Rituals (Non-European Cultures)

 Shakespeare

 Comedy

 American Musical

 Serious Drama

40%

Draw from Grade 8 categories and add:

 Epic Theatre

 Spanish Golden Age

 Greek Tragedy

 20th Century American and World Drama

Literature 40%

 Fairy Tales

 Folk Tales

 Children’s Literature

 Poetry

25%

Draw from Grade 4 categories and add:

 19th Century American/ European

 Modern

 Non-Western

15%

Draw from Grade 8 categories

Film and

Television

10%

 Television

 Film

20%

Draw from Grade 4 categories and add:

 Social Realism

 Special Effects

25%

Draw from Grade 8 categories and add:

 Documentary

 Experimental

 Foreign Films

Other 40%

 Other Art Forms

 Historical and Current Events

25%

Draw from Grade 4 categories and add:

 Anthropology

20%

Draw from Grade 8 categories
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sensus Project’s Assessment Specifications.) The tasks

used multiple-choice, short constructed-response, and

extended constructed-response questions (see table 4 for

a sample scoring guide for an extended constructedresponse task). Over two thirds were constructedresponse rather than multiple-choice.

2. Performance Tasks

Performance tasks asked students to work together in

small groups (usually two to four students) to do such

things as improvise a scene on the basis of a few introductory lines of dialogue or to write and perform a brief

play. Video cameras recorded student performances. In

some of the tasks, students were asked to comment on

their workwhat they were trying to achieve, and how

well they did it.

Because of the collaborative nature of theatre, a student’s performance in several of the tasks was a combination of an individual and a group score, unusual in

NAEP. Both the paper-and-pencil and the performance

tasks allowed students recognition for exceptional performance. Scoring guides for the performance tasks gave

credit for students who performed their tasks in a “masterful” manner (see table 5 for a sample scoring guide

for a performance task).

Field Test Issues

In the theatre field tests for grades four and eight there

were many issues that NAEP had not dealt with before.

Capturing student group performances (two to four students) on video for evaluation presented many challenges. A workable space had to be prescribed on the

floor. A video camera, which would remain stationary

throughout the performance, had to be properly placed

to record the entire scene. Backgrounds were not always

taken into account, and there was no special lighting,

which meant that it was sometimes difficult to see facial

expressions. Since the microphone was on the camera, it

was sometimes difficult to hear actors’ voices, particularly if the task took place in a noisy area. Facilitators

had to have special training, so that they could make the

students feel comfortable enough to perform without

being “too helpful”unfairly contributing to the students’ performance.

In the twelfth-grade field test, NAEP found it necessary

to increase the amount of time allowed for performance

tasks from 60 to as much as 90 minutes. Traditionally,

NAEP has sought to use no more than one class period

for an assessment task. However, NAEP found that

some of the theatre performance tasks required more

time, particularly the tasks that required students to create, perform, and then analyze their work.

Table 5.Twelfth-Grade Theatre Field Test Scoring Guide for a Performance Task

Student performance tasks were scored using such factors as the

degree of spatial awareness demonstrated by students in their performance. Scoring guides used criteria similar to the following:

Unacceptable: The student demonstrates no sense of spatial

awareness, with regard to herself/himself, the other actors, or the

audience.

Partial: The student demonstrates a spatial awareness some of

the time. However, at some points the student is either blocked by

or blocks another actor and/or speaks with her/his back to the

audience.

Essential: The student demonstrates a spatial awareness a majority of the time. The student may have one minor lapse by either

blocking or being blocked by another actor and/or speaking with

her/his back to the audience.

Extensive: The student demonstrates consistent spatial awareness

during the entire improvised scene, with no lapses of any kind.

Table 4.Twelfth-Grade Theatre Field Test

Scoring Guide for Paper-and-Pencil Task

Extended constructed-response questions on the paper-andpencil test gave students such tasks as determining whether

to use a realistic or abstract set for a play. The scoring

guide, designed to capture the full range of student abilities,

gave credit according to standards similar to the following:

Unacceptable: The student makes no choice between a

realistic or abstract set; the student makes a choice without

explaining it; the student’s explanation is unclear.

Partial: The student makes a choice, but cites only one

reason for that choice, and offers no basis for the choice

from the text of the play.

Essential: The student makes a choice and gives two reasons for that choice, but fails to provide support from the

text of the play or provides support that is unclear or vague.

Extensive: The student makes a choice and gives two reasons for that choice, giving clear support from the text of

the play. In addition, the response indicates an understanding of the difference between an abstract and a realistic set.
6

The greatest difficulty encountered in the field tests was

obtaining a full range of performance from the students

sampled. This was particularly true in the eighth-grade

field test. In the fourth- and eighth-grade field tests,

which were given to random cross sections of students,

it was difficult to obtain performances that went beyond

the simplest level. To fairly assess the students and obtain results that resembled the breadth of the theatre

standards, NAEP decided to sample only students who

had had some instruction in theatre, for both the twelfthgrade field test and the eighth-grade assessment. The

difference was significant. Student performance evidenced the full range envisioned by the scoring rubrics.

Creating and administering a national performance assessment was very challenging. The NAEP Theatre

Framework, Field Test and Assessment provide useful

models for future assessments, at the state and local

level, as well as nationally. Several important problems

were confronted during the development and scoring of

the assessment. Among these were how to create tasks

suitable for a variety of students with a variety of educational backgrounds, while also making distinctions

among levels of student achievement. These issues,

among others, will be explored in the upcoming arts reports.

Footnotes

1. For details on the Arts Education Consensus Project, see the

Arts Education Assessment Framework for the 1997 National

Assessment of Educational Progress (1994), the National Assessment Governing Board.

For Further Information

Arts Education Assessment Framework for the 1997 National

Assessment of Educational Progress. Single copies are available free from the National Assessment Governing Board, 800

 North Capitol Street, NW, Suite 825, Washington, DC

20002–4233. Copies may also be obtained on the World Wide

Web at http://www.nagb.org/pub.html.

National Standards for Arts Education. Copies are available

for $20 from the Music Educators National Conference, 1806

Robert Fulton Drive, Reston VA 20191, 8003363768.

Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools,

NCES 95082, provides data obtained from questionnaires

sent to the principals of nationally representative samples of

public schools. It is not in print, but is available over the

NAEP web site at http://nces.ed.gov/NAEP/.

The following Focus on NAEP publications are also available

free from the National Center for Education Statistics, U.S.

Department of Education, Washington, DC 202085653.

Copies may also be accessed over the World Wide Web at

http://nces.ed.gov/NAEP/.

The NAEP Arts Education Framework, Field Test, and Assessment, NCES 98527

NAEP and Dance: Framework, Field Test, and Survey, NCES

98459

NAEP and Music: Framework, Field Test, and Assessment,

NCES 98529

NAEP and the Visual Arts: Framework, Field Test, and Assessment, NCES 98526

The Focus on NAEP series briefly summarizes information on

the ongoing development and implementation of the National

Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The series is a

product of the National Center for Education Statistics

(NCES), Pascal D. Forgione, Jr., Commissioner, and Gary W.

Phillips, Associate Commissioner for Education Assessment.

This Focus on NAEP was written by Alan Vanneman, of the

Education Statistics Services Institute, in support of NCES,

Claudette Morton, chair of the NAEP Arts Standing Committee and co-chair of the Theatre Planning Committee, and

Lisa Beth Allen of the Sundance Institute, Theatre Program.

To order other NAEP publications, call Bob Clemons at 202–

219–1690, or e–mail bob_clemons@ed.gov.

The NCES World Wide Web Home Page is

http://nces.ed.gov/ NAEP/.