This chapter describes how any campus can use collaborative professional integration and three "data buckets" (pre-college, during-college, and post-college buckets) to disaggregate assessment evidence, interpret findings contextually, and focus attention on realistic actions to improve student performance in the areas of leverage over…

The National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) held a virtual meeting of an Interim Assessment Advisory Panel on February 16 and 17, 2021, to tap into the panel members' collective knowledge about using interim assessments to support valid interpretations of what students with disabilities know and can do. The panel represented…

Through our national thematic reports HM Inspectors of Education share their professional view on particular aspects of education. This report focuses on sharing the key features which, when taken together, make the greatest difference to using assessment effectively to improve learning and teaching and in turn, outcomes for children and young…

In this book, best-selling author Susan M. Brookhart helps teachers and administrators understand the critical elements and nuances of assessment data and how that information can best be used to inform improvement efforts in the school or district. Readers will learn: (1) What different kinds of data can--and cannot--tell us about student…

Education systems are increasingly creating rich, longitudinal data sets with frequent, and even real-time, data updates of many student measures, including daily attendance, homework submissions, and exam scores. These data sets provide an opportunity for district and school staff members to move beyond an indicators-based approach and instead…

The accountability movement in education has caused school administrators and teachers to think differently about how they report, interpret, and use student assessment data. For example, legislative measures such as No Child Left Behind require school officials to report how all students are progressing toward established standards typically…

Despite repeated calls for educators to get more instructional mileage out of the assessment data they have at hand, two deterrents typically stand in the way of most educators' effective use of test data. First, there's a missing "realization", and second, there's a missing "skill". Educators who possess both this realization and this skill will…

This paper introduces five commonly used approaches to analyzing multiple-choice test data. They are classical test theory, factor analysis, cluster analysis, item response theory, and model analysis. Brief descriptions of the goals and algorithms of these approaches are provided, together with examples illustrating their applications in physics…

A new type of multiple-choice test was developed and used in the teaching and assessment of knowledge of medical biology at a university in Hungary. The test includes experimental data and requires students to interpret data and to draw conclusions from results. A description of the test, experiences with the test, and one test are included. (RH)

Explores secondary school staffs' use of value added data, summarizing evidence emerging from other studies on how value added data are used by schools and questions this raises. The paper discusses findings and issues that emerged from a recent National Foundation for Educational Research-funded project that explored the potential role of value…

Accreditation, budget, and accountability pressures at the institution and program levels lead to the involvement of faculty in assessment-based activities. Increasingly, programs are being expected to document student learning beyond traditional course grades. The use of outcomes as a tool to improve learning relies heavily on the active…

This report provides educational stakeholders with information about how to close the achievement gap in education. Researchers reviewed several analyses of test score data and various studies of the gap and its causes. Part 1 contains background information and discusses why this gap has become such a critical issue, reviews basic principles, and…

In this chapter, the author attempts to help the reader see beyond the current state of affairs in terms of the relationship between classroom assessment and accountability and to consider some wider perspectives and possibilities. Hopefully, this will also help the reader step into the spirit of the discussion that is inherent in the chapters…

Officials with the National Center for Education Statistics asked the National Research Center's Board on Testing and Assessment to convene a workshop to assist them with their decisions about reporting results for accommodating test takers. The day-long workshop brought together four panels of representatives from state assessment offices,…

This document highlights the National Education 2001 Summit (held in Palisades, Ne York, October 9-10, 2001) in which government, business, and education leaders considered ways to raise standards and achievement in U.S. schools, offering state teaching, testing, and accountability activities, data on progress since 1966, and public supports for…