Who are the Students in Alternate and Modified Achievement Standards Assessments?

1. Who are the Students in Alternate and Modified Achievement Standards Assessments? Jacqueline F. Kearns, Ed.D., NAAC Martha Thurlow, Ph.D., NCEO Elizabeth Towles-Reeves, Ph.D., NAAC OSEP Project Directors’ Conference July 22, 2008

2. Part I Alternate Achievement Standards Assessments

3. Topics Alternate Achievement Standards Assessments and the Validity Evaluation Current Research from NAAC-Who are the Students in Alternate Achievement Standards Assessments? Implications for the Validity Evaluation

4. INTERPRETATION OBSERVATION COGNITION The Assessment Triangle & Validity Evaluation Marion & Pellegrino (2006) • Assessment System • Test Development • Administration • Scoring • Reporting • Alignment • Item Analysis & DIF/Bias • Measurement error • Scaling and Equating • Standard Setting • VALIDITY EVALUATION • Empirical evidence • Theory & logic (argument) • Consequential features • Student Population • Academic content • Theory of Learning

5. Cognition Vertex Validity Questions • Is the assessment appropriate for the students for whom it was intended? • Is the assessment being administered to the appropriate students? Both are important for the validity evaluation

6. Issues in Teaching/Assessing Students in Alternate Achievement Standards Assessments Varied levels of symbolic communication Attention to salient features of stimuli Memory Limited motor response repertoire Generalization Self-Regulation Meta-cognition Skill Synthesis Sensory Deficits Special Health Care Needs Kleinert, H., Browder, D., Towles-Reeves, E. (in press).Models of cognition for students with significant cognitive disabilities:  Implications for assessment. Review of Educational Research.

7. Learner Characteristics Demographic Variables • Learner Characteristics (all on a continuum of skills): • Expressive Language • Receptive Language • Vision • Hearing • Motor • Engagement • Health Issues/Attendance • Reading • Mathematics • Use of an Augmentative Communication System (dichotomous variable)

8. Methodology • Seven partner states chose to participate during the 2006-2007 school year. • States 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6: • gathered data in the administration process for their alternate achievement standards assessment (i.e., bubble sheet, paper/pencil version of the LCI, etc.) • State 7: • gathered data using Zoomerang, an online survey package.

9. States & LCI Response Rates

11. Expressive Language

12. Receptive Language

13. Use of Augmentative Communication Systems

14. Reading

15. Mathematics

16. Expressive Language Across Grade Bands

17. Reading Across Grade Bands

18. Mathematics Across Grade Bands

19. Who are the Kids in Alternate Achievement Standards Assessments? • Represent ~1% or less of the total assessed population • All disability categories were represented but primarily 3 emerge, • Mental Retardation • Multiple Disabilities • Autism • Highly varied levels of expressive/receptive language use • Most students in the population use symbolic communication • Level of symbolic language use does not significantly change across grade-bands • The majority of students do not use AAC • Most of the population read basic sight words and solve simple math problems with a calculator. • Changes in skill progression in reading and math across grade bands most likely due to identification of students rather than teaching and learning

20. Cognition Vertex: Validity Evaluation Essential Questions Who is the population being assessed? How do we document and monitor the population? What do we know about how they learn (theory of learning) academic content? What do our assessment results tell us about how the population is learning academic content? Are our data about the population and theory of learning consistent with student performances on the assessment? If not, what assumptions are challenged? What adjustments should be made? Participation Theory of Learning Student Performance

21. Alternate Achievement Standards Assessments • References • Kleinert, H., Browder, D., Towles-Reeves, E. (in press). Models of cognition for students with significant cognitive disabilities:  Implications for assessment. Review of Educational Research. • Marion, S., & Pellegrino, J. (2006). A validity framework for evaluating the technical quality of alternate assessments. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practices, 25(4), 47-57. • Additional Resource • Towles-Reeves, E., Kearns, J., Kleinert, H., & Kleinert, J. (2008, May 12). An analysis of the learning characteristics of students taking alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards. Journal of Special Education. Retrieved June 2, 2008, from http://sed.sagepub.com/cgi/rapidpdf/0022466907313451v1.

22. Part II Modified Achievement Standards Assessments

23. Topics Research and Regulation Advice Current Practice GSEG Project Work

24. Why Start from the Student? • National Research Council – Pellegrino, Chudowsky, & Glaser, (2001) – Knowing What Students Know • Luecht (2007) - good assessment design would apply human factors engineering principles by developing cognitive maps and cognitive construct models • Pellegrino (2007) - Principled Assessment Design process that started with a clear student model as the basis for an evidence model that would, in turn, serve as the basis for a task model.

25. Why Start from the Student? • Mislevy and Haertel (2007) - central point of agreement of these models is the necessity of first developing a good understanding of how people do or fail to do what is to be measured. Then tasks can be developed that let us observe what people do so we are able to make inferences that are more fully supported by clearer evidence.

26. observation interpretation cognition Assessment as a Process of Reasoning from Evidence • Cognition • model of how students represent knowledge & develop competence in the domain • Observations • tasks or situations that allow one to observe students’ performance • Interpretation • method for making sense of the data The Assessment Triangle Must be coordinated!

27. Cognition Vertex Validity Questions • Is the assessment appropriate for the students for whom it was intended? • Is the assessment being administered to the appropriate students? • Both are important for the validity evaluation

28. April 9, 2007 Regulations Address Who the Students Are • Preamble: The final regulations intentionally do not prescribe which students with disabilities are eligible to be assessed based on modified academic achievement standards; that is the determination of a student’s IEP Team, which includes the student’s parents, based on criteria developed by the State as part of the State’s guidelines for IEP Teams

29. April 9, 2007 Regulations Address Who the Students Are • The student’s progress to date in response to appropriate instruction . . ., is such that, even if significant growth occurs, the IEP team is reasonably certain that the student will not achieve grade-level proficiency within the year covered by the student’s IEP. Section 200.1(e)(2)(ii)

30. April 9, 2007 Regulations Address Who the Students Are • Inform IEP teams that students eligible to be assessed based on alternate or modified academic achievement standards may be from any of the disability categories listed in the IDEA. Section 200.1(e)(2)(ii)

31. From Cortiella (2007), Learning Opportunities for Your Child Through Alternate Assessments – Alternate Assessments based on Modified Achievement Standards

32. Current Practice • In 2007, 5 states had assessments that they believed to be an AA-MAS before the April, 2007 regulation release – see Lazarus, Thurlow, Christensen, & Cormier (2007) • Update study now being conducted – have pulled information on eligibility for AA-MAS

33. Eligibility Criteria in States In 2008, 10 states had assessments that they believed to be an AA-MAS California North Carolina Connecticut North Dakota Kansas Oklahoma Louisiana Texas Maryland Virginia

34. 2008 Study Number of States With Selected Eligibility Criteria

35. 2008Study Number of States With Selected Eligibility Criteria

36. 2008Study Number of States With Selected Eligibility Criteria

37. 2008Study Number of States With Selected Eligibility Criteria

38. 2008 Study Number of States With Selected Eligibility Criteria

39. 2008 Study Number of States With Selected Eligibility Criteria

40. 2008 Study Number of States With Selected Eligibility Criteria

41. Identifying Accommodations for AA-MAS • State Approaches • Accommodations issues for regular assessment • Integration of “accommodations” and universal design principles into the regular assessment first, then in the design of the AA-MAS

42. State Approaches – Accommodations Incorporated into AA-MAS Design

43. AA-MAS Participation Rates (2006-07) Rates based on # students with IEPs State 1 (long time) Reading = 19% Math = 17% State 2 (long time) Reading = 10.5% Math = 9.9% State 3 (long time) Reading = 23% Math = 21% State 4 (newer) Reading = 31% Math = 29%

44. AA-MAS Rates Proficient (2006-07) Rates based on # students with IEPs State 1 (long time) Reading = 24% Math = 33% State 2 (long time) Reading = 4.3% Math = 2.6% State 3 (long time) No Data No Data State 4 (newer) Reading = 52% Math = 54%

46. Considerations • Alternate Achievement Standards Assessments: • Consideration of students with high reading and math abilities • Assessment design for a highly varied population • Considering symbolic language use • Skill progressions in reading and math

47. Considerations • Modified Achievement Standards Assessments: • Moving from student characteristics to an assessment based on grade-level content, but with modified achievement standards • Clearly defining the relationships among the general assessment, the AA-AAS, the AA-MAS, and the AA-GLAS, if one exists • Separating instructional issues from assessment issues • Providing training and assistance for good decisions about who needs which assessment

48. Contact Information Jacqueline Kearns, Ed.D. Elizabeth Towles-Reeves, Ph.D. 1 Quality Street, Suite 722 Lexington, Kentucky 40507 859-257-7672 859-323-1838 Liztowles-reeves@uky.edu • 1 Quality Street, Suite 722 • Lexington, Kentucky 40507 • 859-257-7672 • 859-323-1838 • Jacqueline.kearns@uky.edu http://www.naacpartners.org/

49. Contact Information Martha Thurlow, Ph.D. • 207 Pattee Hall • 150 Pillsbury Drive SE • Minneapolis, MN 55455 • 612-624-4826 • THURL001@umn.edu www.nceo.info