A new experimental study examines whether interim assessments have an effect on improving outcomes for students at the lower, middle, and higher ends of the achievement distribution, with a particular focus on the lower end.
Specifically, researchers study two reading and math assessment programs in Indiana: mCLASS in grades K–2 (a face-to-face diagnostic for which teachers enter results immediately in a hand-held device) and Acuity, a CTB/McGraw Hill product, in grades 3–8 (which is administered via paper/pencil). K–8 schools that volunteered to take part in the study and met certain criteria (like not having used the two interim assessments before) were randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions in the 2009–10 academic year. Of the 116 schools that met all criteria, seventy were randomly selected to participate, fifty-seven were assigned, and fifty ultimately participated. The outcome measure for grades K–2 was the Terra Nova; for grades 3–8, the Indiana state test (ISTEP+). The analysts conducted various analyses, each of which targeted impact at the lower, middle, and upper tail of the distribution.
In general, the results show that in grades 3–8, lower-achievers seem to benefit more from interim assessments than higher-achieving students. The magnitude of the effects were larger in math than reading; in some cases the estimates for math were larger than one-fifth of a standard deviation, which is sizable. However, the treatment on treatment results (i.e., the fifty schools that participated) show that reading and math results were both insignificant at grade K–2, which used mCLASS.
Analysts posit various reasons for the lack of results at K–2: mCLASS is not as effective as Acuity; effects of tests like these aren’t as visible in the early grades; and the mCLASS impact was not adequately captured by the Terra Nova assessment, nor is mCLASS aligned to Terra Nova, nor is TerraNova aligned to Indiana standards! On the other hand, ISETEP is used for accountability purposes, so teachers are more likely to pay attention to interim assessment results.
Bottom line: At least in this study, interim assessments don’t have much effect on improving outcomes for average or high-performing students—just the low-performers. So about those parents of high-achievers who complain about too much testing for their kids…well, they may have a point.
SOURCE: Spyros Konstantopoulos, Wei Li, Shazia R. Miller, and Arie van der Ploeg, "Effects of Interim Assessments Across the Achievement Distribution: Evidence From an Experiment," Educational and Psychological Measurement (June 2016).
