8th Grade Criterion-Referenced Math 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 One Assessment 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 One Assessment 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 Two Opportunity 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 Three Free 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 Four Appropriateness 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 Five Consistency 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 Six Mastery 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!