Inside IES Research

Notes from NCER & NCSER

Equity Through Innovation: New Models, Methods, and Instruments to Measure What Matters for Diverse Learners

In today’s diverse classrooms, it is both challenging and critical to gather accurate and meaningful information about student knowledge and skills. Certain populations present unique challenges in this regard – for example, English learners (ELs) often struggle on assessments delivered in English. On “typical” classroom and state assessments, it can be difficult to parse how much of an EL student’s performance stems from content knowledge, and how much from language learner status. This lack of clarity makes it harder to make informed decisions about what students need instructionally, and often results in ELs being excluded from challenging (or even typical) coursework.

Over the past several years, NCER has invested in several grants to design innovative assessments that will collect and deliver better information about what ELs know and can do across the PK-12 spectrum. This work is producing some exciting results and products.

  • Jason Anthony and his colleagues at the University of South Florida have developed the School Readiness Curriculum Based Measurement System (SR-CBMS), a collection of measures for English- and Spanish-speaking 3- to 5-year-old children. Over the course of two back-to-back Measurement projects, Dr. Anthony’s team co-developed and co-normed item banks in English and Spanish in 13 different domains covering language, math, and science. The assessments are intended for a variety of uses, including screening, benchmarking, progress monitoring, and evaluation. The team used item development and evaluation procedures designed to assure that both the English and Spanish tests are sociolinguistically appropriate for both monolingual and bilingual speakers.

 

  • Daryl Greenfield and his team at the University of Miami created Enfoque en Ciencia, a computerized-adaptive test (CAT) designed to assess Latino preschoolers’ science knowledge and skills. Enfoque en Ciencia is built on 400 Spanish-language items that cover three science content domains and eight science practices. The items were independently translated into four major Spanish dialects and reviewed by a team of bilingual experts and early childhood researchers to create a consensus translation that would be appropriate for 3 to 5 year olds. The assessment is delivered via touch screen and is equated with an English-language version of the same test, Lens on Science.

  • A University of Houston team led by David Francis is engaged in a project to study the factors that affect assessment of vocabulary knowledge among ELs in unintended ways. Using a variety of psychometric methods, this team explores data from the Word Generation Academic Vocabulary Test to identify features that affect item difficulty and explore whether these features operate similarly for current, former, as well as students who have never been classified as ELs. The team will also preview a set of test recommendations for improving the accuracy and reliability of extant vocabulary assessments.

 

  • Researchers led by Rebecca Kopriva at the University of Wisconsin recently completed work on a set of technology-based, classroom-embedded formative assessments intended to support and encourage teachers to teach more complex math and science to ELs. The assessments use multiple methods to reduce the overall language load typically associated with challenging content in middle school math and science. The tools use auto-scoring techniques and are capable of providing immediate feedback to students and teachers in the form of specific, individualized, data-driven guidance to improve instruction for ELs.

 

By leveraging technology, developing new item formats and scoring models, and expanding the linguistic repertoire students may access, these teams have found ways to allow ELs – and all students – to show what really matters: their academic content knowledge and skills.

 

Written by Molly Faulkner-Bond (former NCER program officer).