Improving Measurement Efficiency of a Curriculum Audit Tool With Item Response Theory

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Evaluations of Curricular Supports in Schools (Table 11)

Abstract

Due to the increasingly diverse student population in the United States, it is imperative for school districts to provide curriculum that reflects the experiences, histories, and contributions of students whose identities have often been marginalized by mainstream curriculum. For a public school district’s curriculum audit, our organization administered an original curriculum audit tool that rated courses based on established principles of culturally sustaining pedagogy. With the collected data, Item Response Theory was then used to gauge the coherence of the tool and inform future revisions for items that appear to yield little information. The results demonstrated the unidimensionality of each domain along with moderate to strong reliability, providing validity evidence for a tool that provides formative feedback on school curriculum.

Authors

• Vo Ram Yoon, Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium

• Jenny Portillo Nacu, MAEC