Implementing and Assessing Student Performance Skills and Learning: A Policy Role-Playing Exercise

Performance skills are important in all public institutions and workplaces, and they play a central role in social engagement and leadership. The ability to perform effectively and intelligently requires individual skills that improve with practice and guidance. We ask our students to perform in the classroom on a regular basis, and they are both formally and informally evaluated for this. However, we spend little time thinking about how performance could be better designed into our post-secondary education. This paper looks at the literature findings related to both performance skills and the utility of role playing and suggests ways to incorporate student performance development into public policy studies. A three-stage process which can be broken down into smaller units for easier application is provided and analyzed in the paper. It also introduces the importance of what the author calls ‘performance learning’ for our post-secondary social science programs, with a focus on developing better student understanding of the importance of power, discourse and informal relations in social studies. Preliminary findings from policy student groups utilizing these methods are also presented. 

Performance skills are important in all public institutions and workplaces, and they play a central role in social engagement and leadership. The ability to perform effectively and intelligently requires individual skills that improve with practice and guidance. We ask our students to perform in the classroom on a regular basis, and they are both formally and informally evaluated for this. However, we spend little time thinking about how performance could be better designed into our post-secondary education. This paper looks at the literature findings related to both performance skills and the utility of role playing and suggests ways to incorporate student performance development into public policy studies. A three-stage process which can be broken down into smaller units for easier application is provided and analyzed in the paper. It also introduces the importance of what the author calls ‘performance learning’ for our post-secondary social science programs, with a focus on developing better student understanding of the importance of power, discourse and informal relations in social studies. Preliminary findings from policy student groups utilizing these methods are also presented.