A comprehensive assessment system serving the needs of students from preschool to the 12th grade must invariably include many different types of assessment. The various assessment types serve different purposes. Benchmark and formative assessments are designed to inform instruction. Pretests and posttests are useful for measuring academic progress. Screening instruments are useful in identifying students at risk for learning problems. Placement tests inform grade-level placements, and advanced course placements. Computerized Adaptive Tests provide efficient measures of academic proficiency. Automated construction of Computerized Adaptive Tests increases testing options and enhances the capability to meet unique local needs. Observational assessments provide authentic measures of competencies in the environment in which those competencies are used. In addition, they provide immediate information that can be used to guide instruction. Value-Added Assessments can identify classes and schools that are highly successful as well as those needing additional assistance.
As the extensive list in the preceding paragraph implies, the most obvious benefit of a comprehensive assessment system is that it helps to ensure that all of the school’s assessment needs are met. Insofar as possible this is accomplished by including all of the various required types of assessment within the system. The vast majority of assessment types will be native to the system. However, there may be some types that are imported into the system. Statewide test results provide a familiar example.
An additional benefit to a comprehensive assessment system is that it creates economies in the assessment process including the construction, publication, administration, scoring, and reporting technology necessary for system implementation. This is the case because the same technology can be used for many different types of assessments.
Perhaps the most important benefit of a comprehensive assessment system is that it supports the ability to adapt to continuous change, which is a hallmark of education in our times. Assessment needs change continuously. A well designed comprehensive assessment system includes technology capable of accommodating change. For example, a well designed system should include the ability accommodate continuously changing standards. It should have the capability to rapidly align items to those standards. It should include dynamic item banks that expand continuously. It should have the capability to generate innovative item types that will be required as the transition to online assessment accelerates, and it should be capable of incorporating new types of assessments to meet changing needs. A comprehensive assessment system should always be and will always be a work in progress. Nothing less will meet the educational challenges of the 21st century.
Showing posts with label standards-based education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label standards-based education. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
District Suggestions for New Items
ATI welcomes suggestions for new items. Such suggestions help to ensure that assessments will meet district needs. ATI currently has one of the largest item banks in the nation containing over seventy-thousand certified items. Moreover, as mentioned above, the banks are continuously growing.
ATI has stringent guidelines for creating items. When making suggestions for new items, there are a number of considerations that a district may find useful. Suggestions for new items are likely to benefit the district most when they focus on the measurement of a specific skill or capability. If the district curriculum includes a particular capability that is not currently well represented in ATI item banks, suggesting the inclusion of additional items assessing the skill in question will be beneficial as long as the skill suggested aligns to the standard. At times, textbooks contain concepts which do not align to any state standards. In order to maintain the validity of ATI assessments, only items which align to a specific state standard may be added to ATI’s assessment bank. The more specific a request provided by a district, the more likely that ATI’s writers will be able to produce the exact items a district desires.
Suggesting stylistic changes is generally less useful. ATI does develop items specifically aligned to the various styles of statewide assessments. ATI, as well as states testing companies, have specific guidelines for measuring reading level. Many items use specific wording in order to maintain appropriate grade-level readability. For example, the phrase “past tense” will not be used on a third grade test since the word “tense” has a reading level ranking of sixth grade. It is important to ensure that items on local benchmark and formative assessments not be limited to a particular style. Only practicing items using specific wording when learning a new concept may cause challenges for students later. Even state released items change their wordings from year to year. One year the first grade word problem may include the phrase “in all” and the following year it may include the phrase “altogether”. It is important for students to practice items using both phrases. In addition, as items become closer in style to a statewide test, the danger that test outcomes will be contaminated by the phenomenon of “teaching to the test” increases. Benchmark and formative assessments are intended to measure the mastery of standards, not merely the ability to respond to items written in one particular style.
ATI has stringent guidelines for creating items. When making suggestions for new items, there are a number of considerations that a district may find useful. Suggestions for new items are likely to benefit the district most when they focus on the measurement of a specific skill or capability. If the district curriculum includes a particular capability that is not currently well represented in ATI item banks, suggesting the inclusion of additional items assessing the skill in question will be beneficial as long as the skill suggested aligns to the standard. At times, textbooks contain concepts which do not align to any state standards. In order to maintain the validity of ATI assessments, only items which align to a specific state standard may be added to ATI’s assessment bank. The more specific a request provided by a district, the more likely that ATI’s writers will be able to produce the exact items a district desires.
Suggesting stylistic changes is generally less useful. ATI does develop items specifically aligned to the various styles of statewide assessments. ATI, as well as states testing companies, have specific guidelines for measuring reading level. Many items use specific wording in order to maintain appropriate grade-level readability. For example, the phrase “past tense” will not be used on a third grade test since the word “tense” has a reading level ranking of sixth grade. It is important to ensure that items on local benchmark and formative assessments not be limited to a particular style. Only practicing items using specific wording when learning a new concept may cause challenges for students later. Even state released items change their wordings from year to year. One year the first grade word problem may include the phrase “in all” and the following year it may include the phrase “altogether”. It is important for students to practice items using both phrases. In addition, as items become closer in style to a statewide test, the danger that test outcomes will be contaminated by the phenomenon of “teaching to the test” increases. Benchmark and formative assessments are intended to measure the mastery of standards, not merely the ability to respond to items written in one particular style.
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