1. On the Road to Career Readiness: The cPass Assessment San Diego, CA June 23, 2015 Laura M.B. Kramer, Ph.D. Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation University of Kansas JUNE 2015 1

2. The Goal  Provide an assessment that would give CTE students an opportunity to demonstrate what they know and are able to do in a rigorous and relevant assessment  CETE designed an assessment SYSTEM to meet this need  Kansas shared the plans and designs with other states, who also had the same goals  Recognized economies of scale, formed collaborative project JUNE 2015 2

3. The Beginning  CETE : 35-year partnership with KSDE  Statewide assessments used in accountability  How to best serve CTE students?  Showcase the value of CTE skills  Validate the work of CTE teachers  Ensure that CTE graduates have “the right stuff” that employers want  Kansas College AND Career Ready Standards JUNE 2015 3

4. “What Comes Next?”  College Ready & Career Ready are not always the same thing  Many careers don’t require college  We have a good idea of what it takes to be ready for college  What it takes to be successful in a career varies by career  Some overarching similarities  But many more differences JUNE 2015 4

5. Similarities  Communication, receptive and expressive  Numeracy and analytic thinking  Reasoning and problem-solving  Interpersonal strategies and mediation  Leadership skills and styles  Employability skills (e.g., punctuality, dependability) JUNE 2015 5

6. Differences  Communication  Field-specific jargon, technical language  Numeracy  Business/Finance vs Agriculture/Animal Systems  Reasoning and problem-solving  Not everything lends itself to a testable hypothesis e.g., herd health management  Pathway-specific content JUNE 2015 6

7. Advantages/Challenges In many cases, the advantages of a multi-state collaborative ARE the challenges also  Global focus rather than specific to a single state  Not just cattle or tilapia – expand the idea of “animal systems”  Broader representation of SMEs from diverse backgrounds  Use industry-specific terms rather than local or colloquial terms JUNE 2015 7

8. Advantages/Challenges  Do all states cover the same material?  Looked at all three states’ CTE standards and national standards when available  Do all students have the same opportunities to learn?  Collaboration led to consensus on best practices  Question became SHOULD the students learn this?  Where are the opportunities for personalization for a student or program? JUNE 2015 8

9. Defining Skills  Each state already had its own set of content standards and/or curriculum  Initial pathway meetings included State agency (K-12 or CC) representation  Very honest discussions among all of the SMEs and State people about strengths and weaknesses  Recognized that collaboration on the assessment could lead to pedagogical change JUNE 2015 9

10. Defining Skills  When there were national standards, each state described what the content looked like for them  Referenced individual state standards also  Looked for superordinate themes that addressed the content  In the absence of national standards, looked at each state’s standards to identify the assessed content  Sometimes one state’s was clearly the best  Sometimes we took elements from all three states  Again looking for themes JUNE 2015 10

11. Defining Skills  Broader themes offered several advantages  Basis for a common assessment that would meet the expectations of all states  Provides national generalizability rather than a local focus  Identified opportunities for individualization / personalization in the performance part of the assessment JUNE 2015 11

12. Defining Purpose(s)  States had different needs, expectations for the assessment  Student accountability  Teacher accountability (growth) – later addition  State accreditation (rewards or sanctions)  Federal requirements (ESEA and Perkins)  Needed to design an assessment system that could meet these diverse needs JUNE 2015 12

13. Defining Purpose(s)  Maintaining high standards / best practices for technical quality  Dually mapping items to CTE standards and academic standards in ELA, Math, Science  Becoming harder to maintain as states move away from CCSS  Flexibility for states in using all components or just parts of the system  Potential pretest/growth component still on wish-list JUNE 2015 13

14. Assessment System Development  Secondary and post-secondary educators and industry representatives served as SMEs in all aspects of development  Test blueprints through standard setting  Secondary educators are the “producers”  PSE and Industry are the “consumers”  Students need to exit high school with demonstrable competency in the skills that they need for “what comes next” JUNE 2015 14

15. cPass Assessment System  4-part system  K&A: CBT, machine-scorable assessment  CCQs: performance tasks, scored by experts according to rubrics JUNE 2015 15 General K&AGeneral CCQs Pathway Specific K&A Pathway Specific CCQs

16. “Sit-Down” Item Types  Traditional multiple choice  Multi-select multiple choice  Technology-enhanced/enabled skill items  Situational judgment tasks JUNE 2015 16

17. Examples of CCQs  Resume/career portfolio  Animal vaccination  Welding  Business plan JUNE 2015 17

18. Ongoing Work  Continue test development for remaining pathways  Continue to engage business/industry and post- secondary to expand recognition  Continue to explore new pathways and resources as the collaborating states identify needs JUNE 2015 18

19. Questions? JUNE 2015 19