PARA Field Test

1. PARA Field Test Martha Thurlow, Deborah Dillon, Jamal Abedi, Marsha Brauen June 22, 2010 Partnership for Accessible Reading Assessment (PARA): A collaboration between the University of Minnesota’sNational Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) and the Department of Curriculum & Instruction; CRESST, University of California, Davis; and Westat www.readingassessment.info

2. Background Studies • Item Analyses • Segmenting Study • Reading Pen Study • Motivation Study

3. Final “Accessible” Reading Assessment • High Interest Passages • Segmented Passages • Universal Design Considerations

4. Measures • PARA Test Performance • State Reading Test Performance • Motivation to Read Questionnaire

5. Design Pre-information on Each Student: Gender, Age, Reading level, State test score, and MRQ Survey Typical State Assessment (Proxy) Lower Interest No Segmenting of Passages PARA Accessible Assessment High Interest Segmented Passages

6. Target Number of Students – in Grade 4 and in Grade 8

7. Students With Disabilities Group A Group B Type of Assessment Accessible Reading Assessment “Regular” Assessment Hypothesized Outcome Higher Performance Lower Performance Hypotheses – Students with Disabilities

8. Students Without Disabilities Group A Group B Type of Assessment “Regular” Assessment Accessible Reading Assessment Hypothesized Outcome No Difference Hypotheses – Students without Disabilities

9. Results - Preliminary

10. Distribution of Mean Scores on MRQ for Grade 8 – Preliminary Data

11. Mean Scores on MRQ across Subgroups for N>=20 – Preliminary Data

12. Scores on State Reading Test – Preliminary Data

13. Teacher Assigned Reading Levels- Preliminary Data

14. Analyses Underway • Attempting to obtain additional subjects • Administrations very positive – despite the time of year • Student persistence high Partnership for Accessible Reading Assessment