PLACEMENT & COLLEGE READINESS: SURVEYING THE LANDSCAPE
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Transcript of PLACEMENT & COLLEGE READINESS: SURVEYING THE LANDSCAPE
PLACEMENT & COLLEGE READINESS: SURVEYING
THE LANDSCAPE
Bill MoorePolicy Associate, SBCTC
Director, Re-Thinking Precollege Math [email protected]
360-704-4346
SESSION OUTLINERole/purpose of placement
testingGeneral issues & definitions
(including attributes, affective domain)
Studies and other resourcesTesting approaches &
alternatives (including diagnostics)
Ideas for Criteria/Principles?
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER• What do you see as the
main functions of placement tests for colleges?
• How well do you think students understand what’s involved in college placement testing (and what’s on the tests)?
PLACEMENT TESTING IN A “SEAMLESS” EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
Sorting students appropriately into postsecondary courses
Defining “college readiness” to various stakeholders, especially K-12 system
Historical Role
New Role in K-20 System
SESSION OUTLINERole/purpose of placement
testingGeneral issues & definitions
(including attributes, affective domain)
Studies and other resourcesTesting approaches &
alternatives (including diagnostics)
Ideas for Criteria/Principles?
Washington Work on College Readiness
REDEFINING COLLEGE READINESS
David Conley, prepared for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2007
Leads to a desire to look
smart, so tends to:
Avoid challenges
Give up easily
See effort as fruitless or
worse
Ignore useful negative feedback
Feel threatened by the success of
others
Leads to a desire to learn,
so tends to:
Embrace challenges
Persist in the face of
setbacks
See effort as the path to
mastery
Learn from criticism
Find lessons and
inspiration in the success of
others
Fixed Mindse
t
Growth
Mindset
As a result, they reach ever-higher
levels of achievement
As a result, they may
plateau early and achieve
less than their full potential.
Student Attributes for
Math Success (SAMS) Project
UT Dana Center
Academic Youth
Development program
Student Readiness Inventory, ACT
Another Approach to Attributes
SESSION OUTLINERole/purpose of placement
testingGeneral issues & definitions
(including attributes, affective domain)
Studies and other resourcesTesting approaches &
alternatives (including diagnostics)
Ideas for Criteria/Principles?
Assessment Findings, CCRC Study
Confusion about what it means to be “college ready”—no obvious cutoff point
Tests may be reasonable predictors of college-level success, but less effective at identifying who is likely to benefit from interventions
Assessments do not provide adequate diagnostic information
A single cutoff point exaggerates the distinction between developmental and college ready—need for multiple measures including non-cognitive
Students are confused about the process and not well advised (Venezia, Bracco, & Nodine, 2010)CCRC, Hughes & Scott-Clayton, 2010)
MDRC study of placement testing practices
ISSUES/FINDINGS• Students take tests
without full understanding of purpose, significance
• Colleges rely solely on single standardized test
• Offer little or no information relevant to faculty, instruction
• Little ongoing deliberation around placement choices, issues
QUESTIONS• Balancing efficiency with
accuracy, relevance?• Role of multiple measures
(transcripts, affective, work samples, …)?
• Strengthen connections between placement, instruction, progress?
• Data collection for ongoing review, deliberation re tests?
Lower
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College
Casca
dia Com
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Colleg
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Centr
alia Colle
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Clark
College
Clover
Park
Techn
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Colum
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Everet
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munity
College
Green R
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Highlin
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Colle
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Lake W
ashing
ton Te
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Penins
ula Coll
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Pierce
College
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ollege
Seattle
Centr
al Co
mmunity
Colle
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South
Seattle
Commun
ity Colle
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Spoka
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munity
Colle
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Spokan
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Walla W
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College
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Compass Test #1: ALGEBRA(Cut Score Needed to Take Intermediate Algebra; average =
52)
Various Relevant Resources/Studies• California Resources and Projects
– Research and Planning Group for California CCs
– Basic Skills Initiative• Achieving the Dream reports
– “Standardization vs. Flexibility”– “It’s Not about the Cut Score…”
• National Center for Postsecondary Research (Community College Research Center)
• MDRC Research • ACT• Developmental Education Initiative
SESSION OUTLINERole/purpose of placement
testingGeneral issues & definitions
(including attributes, affective domain)
Studies and other resourcesTesting approaches &
alternatives (including diagnostics)
Ideas for Criteria/Principles?
Math Placement Testing Options
• MyMathTest• MAA/Maplesoft Placement Test Suite• Academic Placement Testing Program
(MPT, CRMT)
• Carnegie Learning Cognitive Tutor• Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces (ALEKS)
Concept Test ExampleA jogger runs away from campus at a steady
rate, stops to talk to some friends, runs away from campus for a little longer, and then returns to campus. Which graph below could show the jogger’s distance as a function of time?
Customized State Approaches
http://www.calstate.edu/eap/
CLASS RESULTS
School Instructor Course Test Date Test Type AR50/90
Number of Students: 25
Topic No. of Mastery Class Average Students at Code Items Level Score Percent Mastery
DECM 9 6 4.6 51% 6 24% EQTN 6 4 3.2 53% 11 44% EXPS 5 3 2.7 54% 12 48% FRAC 9 6 4.2 47% 4 16% GEOM 10 7 5.0 50% 7 28% INTG 11 8 7.0 64% 12 48% ---- ---- ------ Total 50 26.7 53%
CALIFORNIA MATHEMATICS DIAGNOSTIC TESTING PROJECT
Accuplacer Diagnostics: Example Report
Transcript Placement Prototype
Joe Montgomery
Readiness, not Remediation (Conley)
From the Acceleration Initiative (3CSN.org)
Recommendations include:
Reconsider assumption that placement score = # of terms remediation
Consider using placement scores to identify students needing extra support in accelerated model rather than tracking into longer sequence
(Katie Hern,
Chabot College)
SESSION OUTLINERole/purpose of placement
testingGeneral issues & definitions
(including attributes, affective domain)
Studies and other resourcesTesting approaches &
alternatives (including diagnostics)
Ideas for Criteria/Principles?
Organizing Principles for Assessment• Coherence The system aligns curriculum, instruction, and assessment around the key learning goals spelled out in the standards for college and career readiness.• Comprehensiveness The system consists of a toolbox of assessments that meet a variety of different purposes and that provide various users with information they need to make decisions.• Accuracy and Credibility The information from assessments supports valid inferences about student progress toward college and career readiness, as well as actionable information for multiple users.• Fairness The assessments enable all students to demonstrate what they know and are able to do.
Robert RothmanAlliance for Excellent Education Policy Brief, 2010
Assessment for Placement (Writing): Placement criteria should be clearly connected to any differences in
the available courses. If scoring systems are used, scores should derive from criteria that grow out of the work of the courses into which students are being placed.
Decision-makers should carefully weigh the educational costs and benefits of various approaches (timed tests, portfolios, directed self placement, etc.) recognizing that the method chosen implicitly influences what students come to believe about writing.
Students should have the right to weigh in on their assessment through directed self-placement, either alone or in combination with other methods.
If for financial or even programmatic reasons the initial method of placement is somewhat reductive, instructors of record should create an opportunity early in the semester to review and change students’ placement assignments, and uniform procedures should be established to facilitate the easy re-placement of improperly placed students.
Placement processes should be continually assessed and revised in accord with course content, overall program goals, shifts in the abilities of the student population, and empirical evidence.
Adapted from Conference on College Composition and Communication (4Cs) position statement