Evaluation of "Redesigning the National Assessment of Educational Progress" (1996) / Chapter Skim
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Evaluation
Evaluation
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From page 3... ...
Tests were developed for and administered to 9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds rather than to individuals at specific grade levels. These features, combined with matrix sampling which distributed large numbers of items broadly across school buildings, districts, and states, but limited the number of items given to individual examinees thwarted perceptions of NAEP as a federal testing program addressing a nationally prescribed curriculum.
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From page 4... ...
, with its changes in sampling, objective-setting, exercise development, data collection, and analysis, reflected the growing federal role in American education. The introduction of balanced incomplete block designs for matrix sampling, model-based approaches to item scaling within content domains and across age and grade cohorts, and statistical adjustments based on collateral information about examinees afforded NAEP much greater flexibility in responding to policy demands as they evolved.
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From page 5... ...
The guiding principles for the NAEP redesign listed in the May 1996 Governing Board draft proposal state that the new assessment should: · test annually according to a publicly released schedule, · provide state-level results in reading, writing, math, and science at grade 4 and grade 8 according to a predictable schedule, · use performance standards for reporting whether student achievement is "good enough," · use international comparisons where feasible, · help states and others link their assessments with the National Assessment, · vary the amount of detail in testing and reporting, · simplify the National Assessment test design, · keep test frameworks and specifications stable for at least 10 years, · simplify how student achievement trends are reported, · emphasize grade-based reporting over age-based reporting, · make use of innovations in testing and reporting, and · use an appropriate mix of multiple choice and performance test questions. (See the appendix for the full draft of the NAGB proposal; a slightly modified version was adopted by NAGB on August 2, 1996.)
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From page 6... ...
Student achievement data have become the indicator of choice to gauge the impact of federal and state investment in education, to make judgments about teacher effectiveness or school quality, to review the effectiveness of programs, to evaluate educational innovations, as accountability measures, for classroom feedback, for individual credentialing, and for international comparisons. Congress, the Department of Education, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the National Assessment Governing Board have all succumbed to the growing desire for more and more information about student achievement, and DarlingHammond's cautionary advice notwithstanding, they are asking NAEP to provide it all.
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From page 7... ...
To the extent that NAEP moves toward greater focus on the states, one might expect increased interest in the degree to which the curriculum frameworks developed at the national level accurately characterize state curricula, education goals, and standards. Although the procedures in place for developing curriculum frameworks yield broadly representative specifications for test content, they are not designed for alignment with particular curricula and standards.
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From page 8... ...
Such specific issues as sample size, test content, length, item format mix, and scoring procedures merit empirical investigation. Provisional estimates of the effects of various proposed design changes can be obtained by analyses of existing NAEP data.
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From page 9... ...
And finally, accepting such limited goals provides time in which to engage in a fundamental rethinking of NAEP and its purposes. We urge a modest approach in the current design, but we are also strongly convinced of the need for the National Assessment Governing Board, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the Congress to embark on a process of rethinking the National Assessment of Educational Progress from the ground up.
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From page 10... ...
For example, understanding of knowledge structures and the way individuals acquire and represent knowledge is very different from what it was when NAEP and other large-scale testing programs began (Glaser et al., 1992; Gifford and O'Connor, 1992; Wittrock and Baker, 1991~. Scientific information about learning and cognition is only beginning to be applied to test design in the United States.
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