Assessment Glossary
The following is a comprehensive listing of terms
associated with assessments and performance.
Accountability
State or district policies related to holding districts, schools, and/or
students responsible for performance. School and district accountability
systems typically include efforts to assess and rate schools or
districts based on student performance and other indicators, to publicly
report on school or district performance, and to provide rewards and
sanctions for schools or districts based on performance or improvement
over time. Student accountability generally refers to efforts to hold
students responsible for their own performance by requiring students to
pass a test to be promoted from grade to grade or to pass an exam to
graduate from high school.
ACT
Test see PLAN
Beginning with the Junior class of 2007 all
juniors will take the ACT as part of the MME Michigan Merit Exam.
See MME test.
The American College Testing (ACT) Program, or "A-C-T" as it is commonly called, is a
national college admission examination that consists of tests in:
English
Mathematics
Reading
Science Reasoning
All U.S. colleges and universities accept ACT results. The
ACT includes 215 multiple-choice questions and takes approximately 3
hours and 30 minutes to complete with breaks. Actual testing time is 2
hours and 55 minutes.
AP
Program
The Advanced Placement (AP) Program is an intensive program of 34
university-level courses and examinations sponsored by the College
Board, a nonprofit educational association. In 2000, approximately
750,000 high school students took more than 1.25 million AP Examinations
globally. Approximately 3,000 colleges and universities used the grades
from these exams worldwide as one means of determining the academic
qualifications of matriculating students.
When
the College Board founded it in 1955, the Advanced Placement Program set
new standards for education in the United States. In The National
Education Goals Report, issued annually by the National Education Goals
Panel, participation in the AP Program is recognized as an indication of
a commitment to educational excellence. The National Center for
Education Statistics cites in The Condition of Education, which is
published each year, "Students who took AP Examinations" as
one of 60 indicators of the status and progress of education in the
United States.
The
Program is regarded by the College Board as a way of enabling an
increasing number of advanced students to accelerate their university
studies in the United States, as well as a means of furthering student
mobility throughout the world. Students in more than 50 countries can
achieve these benefits.
The
AP Program develops course descriptions, curricular outlines, teaching
guides, and examinations in art, biology, calculus, chemistry, computer
science, economics, English, environmental science, French, German,
geography, Human Geography, government and politics, history, Latin, music, physics,
psychology, Spanish, and statistics.
Assessment
An exercise--such as a written test, portfolio, or experiment-- that
seeks to measure a student's skills or knowledge in a subject area.
Basic
Skills
The traditional building blocks of a curriculum that is most commonly
associated with explicit instruction in early elementary language arts
and mathematics. Basic skills have historically been taught in
isolation. Basic skills include teaching the letters of the alphabet,
how to sound out words, spelling, grammar, counting, adding,
subtracting, and multiplying.
Criterion-Referenced
Test (CRT)
An assessment that measures a student’s performance according to
specified standards or criteria rather than in comparison to the
performances of other test takers.
DIBELS Test
A series of short tests given to
children in kindergarten through the third grade to screen an monitor their
progress in learning the necessary skills to become successful readers.
Grade
Equivalent (GE)
A score on a scale developed to indicate the school grade (usually
measured in tenths of a year) that corresponds to an average test score.
A grade equivalent of 6.4 is interpreted as a score that is average for
a group that ahs completed the fourth month of Grade 6. Grade
equivalents do not compose a scale of equal intervals and are not usable
in drawing profiles.
MEAP
3-8th grade
MEAP stands for the Michigan Educational Assessment Program. It is a
statewide testing program initiated by the State Board of Education,
supported by the governor, and funded by the legislation.
MME - Michigan Merit Exam
Replaces the MEAP testing at the high school level and includes a free
ACT test for juniors. Exams include the WorkKeys and the Michigan math, science,
and social studies test.
NWEA - MAP Replaces the TERRA NOVA
Standardized testing for students at South
Redford in the 2nd through the 9th grades. Test will be given
Reading
Language use
Math
The MAP program will replace the Terra Nova testing
program as of March 2007, when the Board of Education approved the adoption of
the program. The MAP test adapts to student's ability level. The test will
measure the ability level of students on the high or low side of the scale.
Teachers can utilize the assessment to find out the best way to help a student
improve. See
NWEA
Norm-Referenced
Test (NRT)
A standardized assessment-that is, an assessment in which all students
perform under the same conditions that compares a student or group of
students with a specified reference group, usually others of the same
grade or age.
Percentile
Rank
The percentage of scores for a particular group that fall below a given
student’s score. For example, a score with a percentile rank of 90
indicates that 90 percent of the scores for that particular group are
below that student’s score.
Performance
Standard
A level of performance on a test established by education experts as a
goal of student attainment.
PLAN Test
As a "pre-ACT" test, PLAN is a
powerful predictor of success on the ACT. At the same time, many schools
recognize the importance of PLAN testing for all students, as it focuses
attention on both career preparation and improving academic achievement.
Typically, PLAN is administered in the fall of the sophomore
year.
See PLAN
PSAT
The Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT)/National Merit
Scholarship Qualifying Test (NMSQT) gives you firsthand practice for the SAT I and SAT II:
Subject Test in Writing. It also gives you a chance to qualify for
scholarship and recognition programs.
The
PSAT/NMSQT measures the critical reading, math problem solving, and
writing skills that you've been developing throughout your life. It does
not measure things like creativity and motivation, and it doesn't
recognize those special talents that may be important to colleges.
Terra
Nova Replaced by the NWEA - MAP
Terra Nova uses multiple measures to ensure reliable assessment of a wide
range of skills and proficiency levels. It meets the highest standards
of accuracy and reliability, and it is compatible with accommodations to
ensure inclusion of all students. CTB's unique scoring process
integrates selected-response and open-ended questions, to show what
students truly know and can do--the key to your informed decisions about
their knowledge. The test is provided by CTB/McGraw-Hill
Publishing.
SAT
The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is a three-hour exam that measures two sets of skills-verbal and
mathematical reasoning-that you need to do college-level work in any
academic area. About 2 million students take it every year.
Standards
Subject-matter benchmarks to measure students' academic achievement.
Curriculum standards drive what students learn in the classroom. Most
agree that public schools' academic standards need to be raised.
However, there is national debate over how to implement such
standards--how prescriptive they should be, and whether they should be
national or local, voluntary or mandated.
Standardized
Test
An assessment with directions, time limits, materials, and scoring
procedures designed to remain constant each time the test is given, to
ensure comparability of scores. Many standardized tests have norms. All
norm-referenced tests are standardized.
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