How To Design Performance-Based Questions For Exams

Transitioning from multiple choice questions (MCQ) to performance-based certification (PBC) with performance-based questions isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.

Tech leaders who have already made the switch—Google, SUSE, and Chef—are enjoying benefits like trustworthy channel-partner relationships, greater brand recognition, and increased sales opportunities.

The process of creating PBC questions is surprisingly similar to that of MCQ. However, there are some key differences that hiring and certification managers should familiarize themselves with before getting started.

In this article, we’ll outline what those things are and why they matter. We’ll start with performance-based interviewing, then move on to on-the-job exams and certifications. We’ll also discuss why mentally preparing subject matter experts early on is vital to growing a successful certification program.

Let’s get started:

Why is performance-based interviewing better for your business?

The time of traditional interview questions at job interviews has long been a thing of the past, particularly at progressive, tech-based firms that now employ a blend of competency-based, behavioral, and performance-based interview questions.

As an example, consider the questions, “What can you do?”, “What do you do?”, and “Why do you do X?”, which are designed to assess competency, then behavioral, then performance traits. How would you combine these questions?

Savvy hiring managers know that performance-based interview questions at job interviews and reviews bridge the gap between competencies and behaviors.

If you frame them well, they can tell you about meaningful and specific action taken by (and to be expected from) the applicant, the applicant’s behaviors, and the applicant’s competencies—all in one go.

Consider the following performance-based question:

“Describe a time you were tasked with the dismissal of a team member. How did you approach the situation and why did you take that approach?”

This tells a hiring manager all they need to know—behavior, competencies, and performance– so it’s an excellent interviewing technique for hiring managers and others designing performance-based interview questions for applicants.

By working performance-based questions that ask “what, how, and why” into the interview process, we gain a better understanding of candidates’ and employees’ abilities, the meaningful and specific action they are likely to take in different situations, and their reasoning.

Also, with this formula of performance-based interview questions that feature behavioral elements, we are more inclined to get a STAR method response from the applicant.

We gain an in-depth understanding of our applicants by adding well-crafted performance questions into the interview process, and it saves us having to engage in lengthy back-and-forth discussions with every applicant—but it also helps us to secure the best talent with a proven track record.

What are performance-based questions?

Performance-based questions are used to determine how an applicant or employee performs in real-world situations. Performance-based interview questions do not determine this by measuring theoretical knowledge or personality traits—instead, they measure employee behaviors.

Performance-based interview questions, also known as behavioral interview questions, require the applicant to reference past experiences that highlight their problem-solving skills, critical thinking, communication skills, technical abilities, and performance in real-world scenarios.

Examples of performance-based interview questions include:

  • Describe a situation when you had to multitask in order to solve a time-sensitive problem at work. How did you solve it?
  • Describe your most challenging long-term professional goal to date, including how you achieved it.

Examples of performance-based questions for employee review purposes include:

  • What corporate goals do you feel you’ve helped us to achieve over your past 5 years here, and how have you helped us?
  • What professional development and up-skilling efforts have you made in the past year, and how do they make you a stronger asset to our business?

Of course, performance-based exam and certification questions are a little different from the above, because we need to determine how subjects will apply new knowledge and skills to real-world scenarios that haven’t happened yet—but we’ll dive into that later.

Overcoming the challenges of designing performance-based questions

If you’re not a huge company with an unlimited budget, one of your biggest challenges will be navigating the exam design process with minimal errors, particularly in the design of effective performance-based interview questions and performance-based questions for on-the-job exams.

Obviously, no small or medium-sized business wants to waste time, energy, and resources on designing a mediocre interview or certification exam. Every hiring manager and team manager wants their people to be the best, with the best communication skills, problem-solving skills, creative idea skills, and more.

The good news? Learning how to design performance-based exam questions is relatively straightforward—and it can help you maintain an exceptional standard among your staff.

How to design performance-based assessment questions for on-the-job exams and certifications

Performance-based interview questions and performance-based interviews are more effective than traditional job interviews, we know this because names like Google, Suse, and Chef have chosen to incorporate this format above others.

The same is true in terms of on-the-job exams and certifications, where these big-name brands have learned that performance-based certifications are far more effective than traditional multiple choice.

Because they are rooted in practical skills and real-world performance, they help businesses maintain a more skilled workforce, with higher standards all around. However, the process is different for employee exams and certifications, because we are no longer relying on past experiences.

Instead, we are interested in finding ways to apply freshly gained knowledge to real-world scenarios. Generally, we do this by designing a combination of practical, performance-based tasking and questioning.

Surprisingly, however, the biggest design change has little to do with technical requirements for certifying managers or staff and has everything to do with mindset.

It’s a widely held misperception that the process of designing exam questions for performance-based assessment is worlds removed from preparing for MCQ. In reality, the processes are identical aside from a few important steps.

Similarities between multiple choice questions (MCQ) and performance-based certification (PBC) in exams

There are some similarities between multiple choice questions (MCQ) and performance-based certification (PBC), which are as follows:

  1. You have to perform a job task analysis (JTA).
  2. You can still partner with experienced psychometricians to ensure exam validity and defensibility.
  3. You must obtain subject matter experts for item writing. Typically, these experts are pulled from sales, engineering, and/or customer support.

Again, the primary requirements of designing a technical certification exam are the same for both multiple-choice questions and performance-based certification. Your preparation will most significantly diverge when working with your subject matter experts in step three.

As mentioned, for PBC exams for certification purposes (VS for interviews), our focus will be on performance-based tasking that gets played out by participants in the exam. To determine which outcomes are wrong and which are ideal, our tasking needs to be grounded by tried and true subject matter expert input.

Differences between multiple choice questions (MCQ) and performance-based certification in exams

When building a multiple choice question exam, subject matter experts focus on asking themselves questions related to knowledge alone: “What exam questions shall we ask?”, “What valid distractors can we use for these questions?”, “How can we structure them so as not to give away the answers?” and so on.

Conversely, subject matter experts participating in the performance-based certification development process will ask themselves questions like:

  • What tasks do we want the candidate to perform?
  • What are the expected outcomes (end results)? What does it look like when the candidate has successfully completed each task?
  • What software or tools will the candidate have access to?

As you can see, the subject matter experts must now mentally walk through sequential actions that achieve specific end results. The goal is to contrive simulated real-world situations that bring problem-solving skills, teamwork abilities, communication skills, complex information processing, and advanced technical skills to bear.

For this reason, the early expert input is non-negotiable.

Over the years, we’ve received great feedback from subject matter experts who structure their performance-based certification thought process in the manner outlined above. Many of them report greater ease in developing exam material based on their actual job duties.

Not only do experts enjoy directly applying their skill sets to building exam items, but they also report feeling elated at the responsibility of producing trick questions, distractors, and contrived examples!

One of the keys to ensuring a smooth transition for your subject matter experts is engaging them early in the process.

It’s extremely helpful to provide them with examples of performance-based exam questions to help ground them on the mind shift they will need to make and to help them more quickly gain mastery of PBC exam development.

How to streamline the performance-based certification exam process

Unsurprisingly, it’s not uncommon for certification managers to underestimate the amount of work involved in launching and maintaining a successful performance-based certification program.

However, you can dramatically reduce your stress levels by partnering with someone who has already a) built the tech infrastructure you need and b) managed successful PBC programs.

That’s where we come in—TrueAbility partners with small and medium-sized businesses to manage performance-based certification exam development, exam registration, delivery, and grading for affordable fees.

We’ve built the world’s most sophisticated platform for performance-based certification, that can be customized to deliver convenient, scalable, and accessible exams.

True Ability’s performance-based testing allows HR teams to focus on skills, experiences, and quantifiable data—leading to a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

In closing

Traditional assessments, even traditional performance assessments, have no place in complex modern roles with complex variables.

Throughout this article, you’ve learned that performance-based interview questions are fairly simple to design, provided you know what performance is expected in a role, you can challenge applicants to provide examples of past events that show their relevant skills and behaviors in action.

The process for performance-based exam and certification design is a little more complex because it requires a simulation of real-world scenarios. This means tools, technologies, platforms, and context must be provided by experts and SMEs.

The performance-based assessment was once only accessible to large organizations and only used for high-risk scenarios. Today, many of the economic and technical barriers to adoption have been largely removed.

You needn’t face the problem of performance-based exam design on your own. At TrueAbility, we cost-effectively emulate software platforms used at the worksite to deliver world-class performance-based assessments at any scale. 

Frequently asked questions

What are performance-based questions?

Performance-based questions are used to determine how an applicant or employee performs in real-world situations.

In interviews, they require the applicant to reference past experiences that highlight their problem-solving skills, critical thinking, communication skills, technical abilities, and performance in real-world scenarios.

In exams, they are used in combination with practical tasking to test how subjects apply their newly-gained knowledge in simulated real-world scenarios.

What are examples of performance-based questions?

Examples of performance-based interview questions include:

  • Describe a situation when you had to multitask in order to solve a time-sensitive problem at work. How did you solve it?
  • Describe your most challenging long-term professional goal to date, including how you achieved it.

Examples of performance-based questions for employee review purposes include:

  • What corporate goals do you feel you’ve helped us to achieve over your past 5 years here, and how have you helped us?
  • What professional development and up-skilling efforts have you made in the past year, and how do they make you a stronger asset to our business?

Learn more about True Ability—the world’s most sophisticated platform for performance-based certification and assessment, which can be customized to deliver convenient, scalable, and accessible exams.

Why waste months “reinventing the wheel” when you could just use ours? 

About TrueAbililty 

TrueAbility is a trusted global performance-based technical assessment provider offering a community ecosystem allowing technical professionals and employers to collaborate and measure skill sets through AbilityScreen®. AbilityScreen is the only fully-managed performance-based technical assessment platform operating in a live, cloud environment that automates recruiting and hiring processes to definitively assess and qualify a technical professional’s technology experience.

TrueAbility has executed over 20,000 technical assessments logging more than 18,000 hours of live server practical skill evaluations. Employers have collectively hired hundreds of qualified technical professionals for specific job positions across an array of industries. Founded in 2012, TrueAbility is privately held and headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. For more information, please visit www.trueability.com.

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