8th Grade8th Grade Criterion-Referenced Criterion-Referenced

Math TestMath Test

8th Grade8th Grade Criterion-Referenced Criterion-Referenced

Math TestMath Test

By Becky Brandl, Shirley Mills and Deb Romanek

Standards

• 8th Grade Summative Assessment designed to provide evidence

of meeting the Nebraska Math Standards

Assessment

• Selected Response Questions

• Multiple choice• Matching• True/False

Quality Criterion OneAssessment Reflects Standards

• Grade level math teachers were invited to participate in creating an assessment to include all 8th grade math standards

• Focus was to create constructed-response items

• Teachers selected strands to design test items

Quality Criterion OneAssessment Reflects Standards (con’t.)

• Teachers selected items from the test bank they developed based on a five questions per standard sample

• Teachers modified the original constructed-response format to selected-response

• After the completion of the assessment, a panel of educators representing the region reviewed for:

» Standard match

» Adequate coverage

Quality Criterion TwoOpportunity to Learn

• A panel of qualified math teachers examined their district curriculum to determine opportunity to learn prior to the assessment

• Items were based on classroom assessments

Quality Criterion ThreeFree from Bias

• Bias training was provided prior to test writing

• Panel of qualified educators analyzed items for bias

• 35 of 179 items were modified • An additional review was completed with

no additional changes

Quality Criterion FourAppropriateness

• Writers and reviewers were experienced in teaching the content and students at 8th grade level

• Readability analysis was conducted using the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Scale

Quality Criterion FiveConsistency of Scoring

• Why?• Format was selected to easily determine

test and item analysis

• Who? • Individual districts could run KR-20, KR-21

or Coefficient Alpha

• Results? • Individual Districts report results to the

state

Quality Criterion SixMastery Levels

• Training was provided on setting cut scores

• Individual districts selected a method and reported results directly to NDE

Conclusions

• Strengths• Consortium of experienced educators

generated items• Test construction completed by “outside

resource”• Time efficient to administer and score

Conclusions

• Concerns• Changed items to selected response• Provides less evidence of student

mastery• Done for state reporting purpose only

Conclusions

• Weakness• Event only • Lack of student involvement and

ownership• No instructional modifications for

teaching interventions

Future Plans

• Invite districts to administer both constructed-response and selected- response formats of the test . . .

. . . and analyze the results!