Its not rocket science to assess yourself how a fund is doing,look at its returns and look at the returns of other funds you might be interested in,normally easily available from their websites and know what the average market returns were for those periods.
Of course you take other factors into account,if you are looking at really high returns from property funds over the last few years you might be thinking that that is not going to be matched in future years.
If you read in the paper that Eagle Stars top fund managers have jumped ship ,you might reconsider investing in their funds
Basically you should
1)Know what level of risk you want,low ,medium ,high
2)Know what time frame you want to invest for
3)Understand are there particular geographical areas or markets you would like to be invested in based on your own analysis or preferences
4)If you have no knowledge or interest in the markets take advice and probably stick with a fund with good diversification
5)When you have established the above ,do online research on the funds provided by all the main players and if dealing with a broker look at the funds he is recommending
6)Compare annual charges on the funds and understand all initial fees ,costs etc and exit fees,if using a broker push them to get you the best deal here