Family & Community Adult Education Adult & Community Learning Services
Adult and Community Learning Services

Questions And Answers Regarding ABE Assessment

1. Why are we required to provide 3 assessments per year and the NRS only requires 2?

Approximately 60% of ABE students across the state leave before the end of the fiscal year. Regardless of whether they have left because of successfully meeting one or more of their goals (about half) or because they have dropped out without having done so (about half), we will lose any measure of their educational progress if we wait until the waning weeks of the fiscal year to conduct a second assessment for that year. Hence, the Department's policy requires not only an initial and final assessment , but a "mid-year assessment" as well for students enrolled for most of the year. Basically this mean that assessments would occur about once every four months for each student.

If more than one assessment is administered, the program should use the same assessment instrument and/or process given as the basis for determination of the educational level - although it may be appropriate to use the next level of some assessments. If no follow-up assessment of the student is made during the program year, the student must be counted as remaining in the same educational level as upon entry and cannot be reported as advancing to a higher functioning level.

2. What do you mean when you state that all programs must use a standardized assessment procedure approved by the state when determining students' educational levels?

The NRS states: To ensure comparability of the meaning of the educational functioning levels across all programs in the state, all programs must use a standardized assessment procedure approved by the state when determining students' educational functioning levels. The assessment procedure may be a standardized test, or a performance-based assessment with a standardized scoring rubric. If performance-based assessment is used, the scoring rubrics should be based on objective, observable criteria and program staff should be trained in scoring to ensure that the measures are valid and reliable across programs and students. For the 2001 and 2002 program years, the Department is using the "crosswalk" with GLEs and SPLs that you submitted as documentation of our state's standardized assessment procedure. Please confirm with your Program Specialist that the crosswalk you submitted has been approved by the Department.

3. What are the state responsibilities in regards to assessment?

The NRS gives the state substantial freedom to determine the assessment policy and procedures used by local programs. States and local programs decide the skill areas in which to assess students, the tests and assessment procedures to use and when to conduct follow-up assessments. This flexibility in assessment permits states and local programs to tailor their instructional activities and curriculum to best meet their priorities and the needs of individual students. However, for the educational functioning levels to be meaningful, the assessment needs to be administered in a standardized and consistent way by all programs in each state. If these procedures are not followed correctly or consistently, the determination of educational functioning level will be invalid or not comparable across programs or possibly even within programs, making the validity and reliability of the data questionable.

The state must determine the standardized assessment process that local programs should follow. These assessments may be standardized tests or performance-based assessments that have standardized scoring rubrics that are observable and objective.

We will convene a working group in January to develop the standardized assessment procedure that will replace the "crosswalks" commencing with program year 2003.

4. What is the crosswalk used for?

The "assessment crosswalk" on file for all programs is our current standardized assessment procedure. The requirements in the NRS became effective as of July 1, 2000 so this interim period until July 1, 2002 will allow us to define our state wide policy. Programs may continue to use the same assessments as used in the past during this interim period.

5. What do you mean by valid and reliable?

• Validity measures the degree to which an assessment measures what it is supposed to measure. (i.e. Does the assessment give you the answer you need).
• Reliability measures the consistency and stability of assessment scores. (i.e. Does the assessment always give you an answer that is consistent).

6. When do you recommend that programs give initial assessment?

Programs may give an informal assessment for placement purposes when they first enter the program so they can be assigned to classes. We feel that students should receive their initial assessment which will be used to track educational progress within two weeks of their enrollment. We recommend that students not be tested during their first contact with the program; research indicates this is a major cause for students dropping out during their initial days/weeks and that the results of assessments conducted the "first day" are generally unreliable.

7. If students are tested in more than one area, which one should be used?

The NRS states that the lowest level should be used. We have determined that programs should use their discretion and try to match goals with assessment areas. For example, if the student's goal is to "improve math skills", a math assessment should be administered and identified as the primary assessment for establishing that student's initial level of proficiency.

8. Do you need to use the same type of assessment for all assessments?

For the purpose of tracking educational gain, the program should use a different form of the same test for the follow-up assessment as for the initial assessment, or if a performance-based assessment is used, the student's performance should be assessed in the same area as used for placement. For example, if a student was placed based on performance on a reading task, an equivalent reading task should be used to assess progress in subsequent assessments. Programs should begin to use the same standardized procedure this year

9. Do we have to use the assessment tools listed in the NRS descriptors?

To assist in placement decisions, benchmarks from a short list of commercially available tests are provided for the federal levels. Tests included are the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS-Life Skills or Employability); Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE, Forms 5-6 and 7-8), reading and total math scale scores and grade equivalents; the Adult Basic Learning Examination (ABLE Form E-F), reading and math; the Adult Measure of Essential Skills (AMES, Forms 1-2 for ABE), reading, computation and communication; Student Performance Levels (SPL) for ESL in speaking, reading, and writing; and scores on the oral Basic English Skills Test (BEST). These benchmarks are provided as examples of how students functioning at each level would perform on the tests. The tests should not be considered equivalent, however, and do not necessarily measure the same skills. In addition, these tests are offered only as examples and their inclusion does not imply that these tests must or should be used in the determination of educational functioning levels. Further, whether or not you choose to use these instruments, the crosswalk you develop for approval by the Department must compare specific levels of performance in the assessment process used by your program with each grade level equivalents (GLE 1-12) and student performance levels (SPL 1-10) - NOT the federal levels; the federal levels tend to span 2-3 GLEs or SPLs.

Thank you for your careful consideration of these issues and your support as we work together to successfully negotiate this challenging transition.