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In order to prepare our students with the knowledge and skills valued by both employers and postsecondary educators, the Tennessee Department of Education has set two major strategic goals:
*By 2020, the average composite score on the ACT will be a 21 (or 1060 on the SAT).
*By 2020, the majority of high school graduates will be on track to receive a postsecondary degree or credential.Contact Information
2020 Assessment and Accountability Meeting presentations and session recordings are available under Testing Resources. Added September 15, 2020 The Fall/Winter 2020 ELA Retake and EOC Test Administration Manual is now available on the Testing Resources page, along with additional administration resources on the Test Administration tab. These released practice tests are available through the STAAR Online Testing Platform. The online practice tests are not available for printing or scoring. If you would like to score your student’s online practice test, you should direct your student to record his or her answers on a separate sheet of paper. Standardized Test Practice. This page offers realistic test practice for a number of state student assessments. Use the buttons below to experience Math and English Language Arts practice tests & sample questions from each state assessment.
*Student Readiness and Preparation: Jerre.Maynor@tn.gov, (615) 253-3780
*Data & Accountability: TNED.Accountability@tn.govLegal Requirement
Pursuant to T.C.A. § 49-6-6001, all public school students must participate in a postsecondary readiness assessment such as the ACT or SAT. Districts may choose to administer the ACT or the SAT. Districts can also provide both assessments and allow their students to choose the assessment that is right for them.
*To receive a regular high school diploma, all students enrolled in a Tennessee public school during their eleventh (11) grade year must take either the ACT or SAT.
*Beginning with the graduating class of 2018, students enrolled in Tennessee public schools during their eleventh grade year must complete the ACT or SAT prior to graduation (see High School Policy 2.103).
Helpful resources to administer the ACT:
*COVID-19 ACT Guidance for Districts and Schools
The ACT assesses students’ cumulative knowledge and skills based on standards taught from elementary to high school. Therefore, all educators in our state play a role in helping students prepare for the ACT. The free resources below may be helpful for both teachers and students in preparing for the ACT.
*ACT Connections - This document highlights content connections between Tennessee Academic Standards and the ACT tested standards.
*Path of Choice
*Preparing for the ACT, Postsecondary, and Career course standards (effective 2017-18)
*Free online ACT & SAT preparation is available to all Tennesseans through the Tennessee Electronic Library. For instructions on how to use the TEL, download the User Guide for the “College Preparation Center” for ACT & SAT assessments.Why should students take the ACT?
The ACT is a nationally recognized benchmark assessment for college and career readiness. By taking the ACT, students can gain valuable information on their readiness for college and career. The ACT, or SAT, is required for admission to many technical schools, two-year colleges, and four-year colleges. Standardized tests are often used to determine eligibility for scholarships; for example, a student’s eligibility for the Tennessee HOPE scholarship is based on their ACT or SAT results.
The new ACT student report will provide students with valuable information to help with college and career planning. The report includes student’s proficiency level in English language arts (ELA), Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), understanding complex texts, and progress towards career readiness. It also includes suggested colleges and career areas based on student’s scores and career interests, as indicated on the ACT.Why do high school students take TNReady and the ACT?
The ACT and TNReady assessments provide valuable information regarding student achievement and readiness for postsecondary opportunities. However, the assessments are different from one another in their structure, format, and purpose. For more information about ACT and TNReady, we encourage you to review these Frequently Asked Questions.Why is one of the strategic goals for the Tennessee Department of Education to have an average ACT composite score of 21?
According to the ACT, the benchmark for college readiness is a composite score of 21. The ACT has further broken down the benchmarks into an 18 for English, 22 for Math, 22 for Reading, and 23 for science. If a student is able to score at, or above, these important benchmarks, they have a high probability of success in credit-bearing college courses.
Also, according to the ACT, if a student is able to meet the score benchmark, they have a 50 percent chance of obtaining a B or higher or a 75 percent chance of obtaining a C or higher in the corresponding college course.
You can read more about the ACT’s alignment with college and career readiness standards here.How will we achieve the goal of an average ACT composite score of 21?
This goal, which is outlined in our strategic planTennessee Succeeds,represents more than a number on a test. Improving the average ACT score of Tennessee students will lead to an increase in the number of students who are able to enroll in postsecondary educational opportunities, and, subsequently, a decreased number of students who need remediation when they reach postsecondary. Together, these factors will also contribute to another strategic goal: that a majority of high school graduates will go on to earn a postsecondary certificate or degree.
We believe that our academic standards and the TNReady assessment are helping to put our students on a strong trajectory toward meeting this goal. We need to continue to push students to take the most rigorous courses available, explore CTE programs of study, and enroll in early postsecondary courses. For the students who have fallen behind, we must provide the supports necessary through strong teaching and response to instruction and intervention.
In the best interests of our students’ futures and the future of our state, we must shift the conversation from “should I attend postsecondary?” to “which postsecondary should I attend?”
Fall 2021 ACT Dates
Districts can choose to administer the SAT to all eleventh-grade students during a school day at no cost to students and calculate its results into their accountability framework. Districts choosing this option can offer the SAT in place of the ACT or offer students the option of choosing either the ACT or the SAT. Students who wish to take both should take one at their own expense. Standardized Test Preparationmr. Regan’s Educational Website Examples
The SAT suite of assessments, including the SAT and PSAT-related assessments, are aligned to state academic standards; they reflect what Tennessee students are learning in classrooms across the state and assess skills that are essential for college and career success. These vertically aligned assessments not only provide more information than ever before about each student’s readiness but also connect to distinct opportunities, including:
*free, personalized, interactive SAT practice for all students through the College Board’s partnership with Khan Academy;
*a dynamic online reporting portal that provides schools and districts with consistent feedback across the SAT suite of assessments that can be used to monitor progress and inform instruction;
*college application fee waivers and access to scholarships; and
*access to Advanced Placement coursework through AP Potential™, which uses students’ PSAT-related assessment scores to help identify those who are likely to succeed in AP.
Districts and schools that have a large percentage of students in Advanced Placement courses may benefit from using the SAT to meet their college-readiness requirements.SAT School Day
Districts can choose to administer the SAT to all eleventh grade students during a school day at no cost to students and calculate the results into their accountability framework. Students may also purchase and take the SAT on a Saturday. You can learn more about the SAT test here.SAT BasicsTotal Testing Time
3 hours + 50 minute essay (optional) Test Sections
*Evidence-Based Reading and Writing
*Reading Test
*Writing and Language Test
*Math
*Essay (optional)SAT Resources
*Path of Choice
*Scholarships and college application fee waivers for eligible students.
*The SAT and SAT Subject Tests Educator Guide (.pdf/1.06 MB) - Detailed overview for educators, including information about the SAT and SAT Subject Tests, registration, testing policies, and score reports.
*Flyer: Free SAT Practice Tools (.pdf/1.14 MB) - Tells students about free practice tools from Khan Academy and the College Board. Students can also visit satpractice.org for free, personalized practice from Khan Academy.
*Flyer: Daily Practice for the New SAT (.pdf/1.0 MB) - Shows students how the free app helps them get ready for the SAT.
*Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) - Effective January 1, 2017, ELL students who take a state-funded SAT during the school day can get testing instructions in several native languages and use approved word-to-word bilingual glossaries. In the fall of 2017, ELL students who take a state-funded SAT during the school day get extended testing time (up to time and a half) and the opportunity to test in an environment with reduced distractions.
*Access to Fee Waivers - School counselors may distribute fee waivers to eligible students.Why should students take the SAT?
*The SAT is a nationally-accepted measure of college and career readiness.
*Scores are accepted by all colleges and universities nationwide.
*SAT scores can be used to connect students to scholarship opportunities.How can I help students prepare for the SAT?
Exams like the ACT and the SAT assess knowledge and skills that students acquire over many years. As such, the best preparation for either exam is high-quality instruction and access to rigorous coursework throughout a student’s academic career. In order to prepare for the structure and format of the SAT exam, the College Board offers the following resources:
*Free Practice from Khan Academy - The College Board’s test developers and Khan Academy worked together to bring students Official SAT Practice. Khan Academy offers personalized recommendations for practice, thousands of interactive questions with instant feedback, video lessons that explain problems step by step, and full-length practice tests.
*Study Tips - Tips on how to use Official SAT Practice and on how to start an SAT study group.Standardized Tests And High-stakes Assessment
Assessment is the process of collecting data to measure the knowledge or performance of a student or group. Written tests of students’ knowledge are a common form of assessment, but data from homework assignments, informal observations of student proficiency, evaluations of projects, oral presentations, or other samples of student work may also be used in assessment. The word assessment carries with it the idea of a broader and more comprehensive evaluation of student performance than a single test.
In an age when testing is controversial, assessment has become the preferred term because of its connotation of breadth and thoroughness. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is an example of a comprehensive assessment worthy of the name. Also known as the ’Nation’s Report Card,’ NAEP administers achievement tests to a representative sample of U.S. students in reading, mathematics, science, writing, U.S. history, civics, geography, and the arts. The achievement measures used by NAEP in each subject area are so broad that each participating student takes only a small portion of the total assessment. Not all assessment programs, however, are of such high quality. Some administer much more narrow and limited tests, but still use the word assessment because of its popular appeal.
Standardized tests are tests administered and scored under a consistent set of procedures. Uniform conditions of administration are necessary to make it possible to compare results across individuals or schools. For example, it would be unfair if the performance of students taking a test in February were to be compared to the performance of students tested in May or if one group of students had help from their teacher while another group did not. The most familiar standardized tests of achievement are traditional machine-scorable, multiple-choice tests such as the California Achievement Test (CAT), the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS), the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS), the Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT), and the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT). Many other assessments, such as open-ended performance assessments, personality and attitude measures, English-language proficiency tests, or Advanced Placement essay tests, may also be standardized so that results can be interpreted on a common scale.
High-stakes testing is a term that was first used in the 1980s to describe testing programs that have serious consequences for students or educators. Tests are high-stakes if their outcomes determine such important things as promotion to the next grade, graduation, merit pay for teachers, or school rankings reported in a newspaper. When test results have serious consequences, the requirements for evidence of test validity are correspondingly higher.Purposes of Assessment
The intended use of an assessment–its purpose–determines every other aspect of how the assessment is conducted. Purpose determines the content of the assessment (What should be measured?); methods of data collection (Should the procedures be standardized? Should data come from all students or from a sample of students?); technical requirements of the assessment (What level of reliability and validity must be established?); and finally, the stakes or consequences of the assessment, which in turn determine the kinds of safeguards necessary to protect against potential harm from fallible assessment-based decisions.
In educational testing today, it is possible to distinguish at least four different purposes for assessment: (1) classroom assessment used to guide and evaluate learning; (2) selection testing used to identify students for special programs or for college admissions; (3) large-scale assessment used to evaluate programs and monitor trends; and (4) high-stakes assessment of achievement used to hold individual students, teachers, and schools accountable. Assessments designed for one of these purposes may not be appropriate or valid if used for another purpose.
In classrooms, assessment is an integral part of the teaching and learning process. Teachers use both formal and informal assessments to plan and guide instruction. For individual students, assessments help to gauge what things students already know and understand, where misconceptions exist, what skills need more practice in context, and what supports are needed to take the next steps in learning. Teachers also use assessment to evaluate their own teaching practices so as to adjust and modify curricula, instructional activities, or assignments that did not help students grasp key ideas. To serve classroom purposes, assessments must be closely aligned with what children are learning, and the timing of assessments must correspond to the specific days and weeks when children are learning specific concepts. While external accountability tests can help teachers examine their instructional program overall, external, once-per-year tests are ill-suited for diagnosis and targeting of individual student learning needs. The technical requirements for the reliability of classroom assessments are less stringent than for other testing purposes because assessment errors on any given day are readily corrected by additional information gathered on subsequent days.
Selection and placement tests may be used to identify students for gifted and talented programs, to provide services for students with disabilities, or for college admissions. Because selection tests are used to evaluate students with a wide variety of prior experiences, they tend to be more generic than standardized achievement tests so as not to presume exposure to a specific curriculum. Nonetheless, performance on selection measures is strongly influenced by past learning opportunities. Unlike IQ tests of the past, it is no longer assumed that any test can measure innate learning ability. Instead, measures of current learning and reasoning abilities are used as practical predictors of future learning; because all tests have some degree of error associated with them, professional standards require that test scores not be the sole determiner of important decisions. For example, college admissions tests are used in conjunction with high school grades and recommendations. School readiness tests are sometimes used as selection tests to decide whether children five years old should start school, but this is an improper use of the tests. None of the existing school readiness measures has sufficient reliability and validity to support such decisions.
Large-scale assessments, such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) or the Third International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS), serve a monitoring and comparative function. Assessment data are gathered about groups of students in the aggregate and can be used by policymakers to make decisions about educational programs. Because there is not a single national or international curriculum, assessment content must be comprehensive and inclusive of all of the curricular goals of the many participating states or nations. Obviously, no one student could be expected to master all of the content in a test spanning many curricula, but, by design, individual student scores are not reported in this type of assessment. As a result, the total assessment can include a much broader array of tasks and problem types to better represent the content domain, with each student being asked to complete only a small sample of tasks from the total set. Given that important policy decisions may follow from shifts in achievement levels or international comparisons of achievement, large-scale assessments must meet high standards of technical accuracy.
High-stakes assessments of achievement that are used to hold individual students, teachers, and schools accountable are similar to large-scale monitoring assessments, but clearly have very different consequences. In addition, these tests, typically administered by states or school districts, must be much more closely aligned with the content standards and curriculum for which participants are being held accountable. As a pra
https://diarynote.indered.space
In order to prepare our students with the knowledge and skills valued by both employers and postsecondary educators, the Tennessee Department of Education has set two major strategic goals:
*By 2020, the average composite score on the ACT will be a 21 (or 1060 on the SAT).
*By 2020, the majority of high school graduates will be on track to receive a postsecondary degree or credential.Contact Information
2020 Assessment and Accountability Meeting presentations and session recordings are available under Testing Resources. Added September 15, 2020 The Fall/Winter 2020 ELA Retake and EOC Test Administration Manual is now available on the Testing Resources page, along with additional administration resources on the Test Administration tab. These released practice tests are available through the STAAR Online Testing Platform. The online practice tests are not available for printing or scoring. If you would like to score your student’s online practice test, you should direct your student to record his or her answers on a separate sheet of paper. Standardized Test Practice. This page offers realistic test practice for a number of state student assessments. Use the buttons below to experience Math and English Language Arts practice tests & sample questions from each state assessment.
*Student Readiness and Preparation: Jerre.Maynor@tn.gov, (615) 253-3780
*Data & Accountability: TNED.Accountability@tn.govLegal Requirement
Pursuant to T.C.A. § 49-6-6001, all public school students must participate in a postsecondary readiness assessment such as the ACT or SAT. Districts may choose to administer the ACT or the SAT. Districts can also provide both assessments and allow their students to choose the assessment that is right for them.
*To receive a regular high school diploma, all students enrolled in a Tennessee public school during their eleventh (11) grade year must take either the ACT or SAT.
*Beginning with the graduating class of 2018, students enrolled in Tennessee public schools during their eleventh grade year must complete the ACT or SAT prior to graduation (see High School Policy 2.103).
Helpful resources to administer the ACT:
*COVID-19 ACT Guidance for Districts and Schools
The ACT assesses students’ cumulative knowledge and skills based on standards taught from elementary to high school. Therefore, all educators in our state play a role in helping students prepare for the ACT. The free resources below may be helpful for both teachers and students in preparing for the ACT.
*ACT Connections - This document highlights content connections between Tennessee Academic Standards and the ACT tested standards.
*Path of Choice
*Preparing for the ACT, Postsecondary, and Career course standards (effective 2017-18)
*Free online ACT & SAT preparation is available to all Tennesseans through the Tennessee Electronic Library. For instructions on how to use the TEL, download the User Guide for the “College Preparation Center” for ACT & SAT assessments.Why should students take the ACT?
The ACT is a nationally recognized benchmark assessment for college and career readiness. By taking the ACT, students can gain valuable information on their readiness for college and career. The ACT, or SAT, is required for admission to many technical schools, two-year colleges, and four-year colleges. Standardized tests are often used to determine eligibility for scholarships; for example, a student’s eligibility for the Tennessee HOPE scholarship is based on their ACT or SAT results.
The new ACT student report will provide students with valuable information to help with college and career planning. The report includes student’s proficiency level in English language arts (ELA), Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), understanding complex texts, and progress towards career readiness. It also includes suggested colleges and career areas based on student’s scores and career interests, as indicated on the ACT.Why do high school students take TNReady and the ACT?
The ACT and TNReady assessments provide valuable information regarding student achievement and readiness for postsecondary opportunities. However, the assessments are different from one another in their structure, format, and purpose. For more information about ACT and TNReady, we encourage you to review these Frequently Asked Questions.Why is one of the strategic goals for the Tennessee Department of Education to have an average ACT composite score of 21?
According to the ACT, the benchmark for college readiness is a composite score of 21. The ACT has further broken down the benchmarks into an 18 for English, 22 for Math, 22 for Reading, and 23 for science. If a student is able to score at, or above, these important benchmarks, they have a high probability of success in credit-bearing college courses.
Also, according to the ACT, if a student is able to meet the score benchmark, they have a 50 percent chance of obtaining a B or higher or a 75 percent chance of obtaining a C or higher in the corresponding college course.
You can read more about the ACT’s alignment with college and career readiness standards here.How will we achieve the goal of an average ACT composite score of 21?
This goal, which is outlined in our strategic planTennessee Succeeds,represents more than a number on a test. Improving the average ACT score of Tennessee students will lead to an increase in the number of students who are able to enroll in postsecondary educational opportunities, and, subsequently, a decreased number of students who need remediation when they reach postsecondary. Together, these factors will also contribute to another strategic goal: that a majority of high school graduates will go on to earn a postsecondary certificate or degree.
We believe that our academic standards and the TNReady assessment are helping to put our students on a strong trajectory toward meeting this goal. We need to continue to push students to take the most rigorous courses available, explore CTE programs of study, and enroll in early postsecondary courses. For the students who have fallen behind, we must provide the supports necessary through strong teaching and response to instruction and intervention.
In the best interests of our students’ futures and the future of our state, we must shift the conversation from “should I attend postsecondary?” to “which postsecondary should I attend?”
Fall 2021 ACT Dates
Districts can choose to administer the SAT to all eleventh-grade students during a school day at no cost to students and calculate its results into their accountability framework. Districts choosing this option can offer the SAT in place of the ACT or offer students the option of choosing either the ACT or the SAT. Students who wish to take both should take one at their own expense. Standardized Test Preparationmr. Regan’s Educational Website Examples
The SAT suite of assessments, including the SAT and PSAT-related assessments, are aligned to state academic standards; they reflect what Tennessee students are learning in classrooms across the state and assess skills that are essential for college and career success. These vertically aligned assessments not only provide more information than ever before about each student’s readiness but also connect to distinct opportunities, including:
*free, personalized, interactive SAT practice for all students through the College Board’s partnership with Khan Academy;
*a dynamic online reporting portal that provides schools and districts with consistent feedback across the SAT suite of assessments that can be used to monitor progress and inform instruction;
*college application fee waivers and access to scholarships; and
*access to Advanced Placement coursework through AP Potential™, which uses students’ PSAT-related assessment scores to help identify those who are likely to succeed in AP.
Districts and schools that have a large percentage of students in Advanced Placement courses may benefit from using the SAT to meet their college-readiness requirements.SAT School Day
Districts can choose to administer the SAT to all eleventh grade students during a school day at no cost to students and calculate the results into their accountability framework. Students may also purchase and take the SAT on a Saturday. You can learn more about the SAT test here.SAT BasicsTotal Testing Time
3 hours + 50 minute essay (optional) Test Sections
*Evidence-Based Reading and Writing
*Reading Test
*Writing and Language Test
*Math
*Essay (optional)SAT Resources
*Path of Choice
*Scholarships and college application fee waivers for eligible students.
*The SAT and SAT Subject Tests Educator Guide (.pdf/1.06 MB) - Detailed overview for educators, including information about the SAT and SAT Subject Tests, registration, testing policies, and score reports.
*Flyer: Free SAT Practice Tools (.pdf/1.14 MB) - Tells students about free practice tools from Khan Academy and the College Board. Students can also visit satpractice.org for free, personalized practice from Khan Academy.
*Flyer: Daily Practice for the New SAT (.pdf/1.0 MB) - Shows students how the free app helps them get ready for the SAT.
*Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) - Effective January 1, 2017, ELL students who take a state-funded SAT during the school day can get testing instructions in several native languages and use approved word-to-word bilingual glossaries. In the fall of 2017, ELL students who take a state-funded SAT during the school day get extended testing time (up to time and a half) and the opportunity to test in an environment with reduced distractions.
*Access to Fee Waivers - School counselors may distribute fee waivers to eligible students.Why should students take the SAT?
*The SAT is a nationally-accepted measure of college and career readiness.
*Scores are accepted by all colleges and universities nationwide.
*SAT scores can be used to connect students to scholarship opportunities.How can I help students prepare for the SAT?
Exams like the ACT and the SAT assess knowledge and skills that students acquire over many years. As such, the best preparation for either exam is high-quality instruction and access to rigorous coursework throughout a student’s academic career. In order to prepare for the structure and format of the SAT exam, the College Board offers the following resources:
*Free Practice from Khan Academy - The College Board’s test developers and Khan Academy worked together to bring students Official SAT Practice. Khan Academy offers personalized recommendations for practice, thousands of interactive questions with instant feedback, video lessons that explain problems step by step, and full-length practice tests.
*Study Tips - Tips on how to use Official SAT Practice and on how to start an SAT study group.Standardized Tests And High-stakes Assessment
Assessment is the process of collecting data to measure the knowledge or performance of a student or group. Written tests of students’ knowledge are a common form of assessment, but data from homework assignments, informal observations of student proficiency, evaluations of projects, oral presentations, or other samples of student work may also be used in assessment. The word assessment carries with it the idea of a broader and more comprehensive evaluation of student performance than a single test.
In an age when testing is controversial, assessment has become the preferred term because of its connotation of breadth and thoroughness. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is an example of a comprehensive assessment worthy of the name. Also known as the ’Nation’s Report Card,’ NAEP administers achievement tests to a representative sample of U.S. students in reading, mathematics, science, writing, U.S. history, civics, geography, and the arts. The achievement measures used by NAEP in each subject area are so broad that each participating student takes only a small portion of the total assessment. Not all assessment programs, however, are of such high quality. Some administer much more narrow and limited tests, but still use the word assessment because of its popular appeal.
Standardized tests are tests administered and scored under a consistent set of procedures. Uniform conditions of administration are necessary to make it possible to compare results across individuals or schools. For example, it would be unfair if the performance of students taking a test in February were to be compared to the performance of students tested in May or if one group of students had help from their teacher while another group did not. The most familiar standardized tests of achievement are traditional machine-scorable, multiple-choice tests such as the California Achievement Test (CAT), the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS), the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS), the Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT), and the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT). Many other assessments, such as open-ended performance assessments, personality and attitude measures, English-language proficiency tests, or Advanced Placement essay tests, may also be standardized so that results can be interpreted on a common scale.
High-stakes testing is a term that was first used in the 1980s to describe testing programs that have serious consequences for students or educators. Tests are high-stakes if their outcomes determine such important things as promotion to the next grade, graduation, merit pay for teachers, or school rankings reported in a newspaper. When test results have serious consequences, the requirements for evidence of test validity are correspondingly higher.Purposes of Assessment
The intended use of an assessment–its purpose–determines every other aspect of how the assessment is conducted. Purpose determines the content of the assessment (What should be measured?); methods of data collection (Should the procedures be standardized? Should data come from all students or from a sample of students?); technical requirements of the assessment (What level of reliability and validity must be established?); and finally, the stakes or consequences of the assessment, which in turn determine the kinds of safeguards necessary to protect against potential harm from fallible assessment-based decisions.
In educational testing today, it is possible to distinguish at least four different purposes for assessment: (1) classroom assessment used to guide and evaluate learning; (2) selection testing used to identify students for special programs or for college admissions; (3) large-scale assessment used to evaluate programs and monitor trends; and (4) high-stakes assessment of achievement used to hold individual students, teachers, and schools accountable. Assessments designed for one of these purposes may not be appropriate or valid if used for another purpose.
In classrooms, assessment is an integral part of the teaching and learning process. Teachers use both formal and informal assessments to plan and guide instruction. For individual students, assessments help to gauge what things students already know and understand, where misconceptions exist, what skills need more practice in context, and what supports are needed to take the next steps in learning. Teachers also use assessment to evaluate their own teaching practices so as to adjust and modify curricula, instructional activities, or assignments that did not help students grasp key ideas. To serve classroom purposes, assessments must be closely aligned with what children are learning, and the timing of assessments must correspond to the specific days and weeks when children are learning specific concepts. While external accountability tests can help teachers examine their instructional program overall, external, once-per-year tests are ill-suited for diagnosis and targeting of individual student learning needs. The technical requirements for the reliability of classroom assessments are less stringent than for other testing purposes because assessment errors on any given day are readily corrected by additional information gathered on subsequent days.
Selection and placement tests may be used to identify students for gifted and talented programs, to provide services for students with disabilities, or for college admissions. Because selection tests are used to evaluate students with a wide variety of prior experiences, they tend to be more generic than standardized achievement tests so as not to presume exposure to a specific curriculum. Nonetheless, performance on selection measures is strongly influenced by past learning opportunities. Unlike IQ tests of the past, it is no longer assumed that any test can measure innate learning ability. Instead, measures of current learning and reasoning abilities are used as practical predictors of future learning; because all tests have some degree of error associated with them, professional standards require that test scores not be the sole determiner of important decisions. For example, college admissions tests are used in conjunction with high school grades and recommendations. School readiness tests are sometimes used as selection tests to decide whether children five years old should start school, but this is an improper use of the tests. None of the existing school readiness measures has sufficient reliability and validity to support such decisions.
Large-scale assessments, such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) or the Third International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS), serve a monitoring and comparative function. Assessment data are gathered about groups of students in the aggregate and can be used by policymakers to make decisions about educational programs. Because there is not a single national or international curriculum, assessment content must be comprehensive and inclusive of all of the curricular goals of the many participating states or nations. Obviously, no one student could be expected to master all of the content in a test spanning many curricula, but, by design, individual student scores are not reported in this type of assessment. As a result, the total assessment can include a much broader array of tasks and problem types to better represent the content domain, with each student being asked to complete only a small sample of tasks from the total set. Given that important policy decisions may follow from shifts in achievement levels or international comparisons of achievement, large-scale assessments must meet high standards of technical accuracy.
High-stakes assessments of achievement that are used to hold individual students, teachers, and schools accountable are similar to large-scale monitoring assessments, but clearly have very different consequences. In addition, these tests, typically administered by states or school districts, must be much more closely aligned with the content standards and curriculum for which participants are being held accountable. As a pra
https://diarynote.indered.space
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