Poster #181 - Teachers’ perspectives on the second year of Kindergarten Readiness Assessment implementation: Still not benefiting instruction

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - School Readiness/Childcare

Integrative Statement

Purpose: Kindergarten Readiness Assessments (KRA) are a central feature of assessment systems funded by the Early Learning Challenge Grant (U.S. DOE, 2016) with 40 states at least in the process of developing a KRA (Center on Standards & Assessment Implementation, 2017). Although KRAs vary from state to state in their form, content, and administration (Ackerman, 2018), these assessments are thought to provide an important foundational understanding of kindergarten children’s initial knowledge and skills (Sabol & Pianta, 2017). Teachers are expected to administer KRAs and use resulting data, however, little is known about their perspectives on these processes.

In the 2014-2015 school year (Y1), the state of Ohio introduced a new KRA. We conducted a small-scale survey of 150 teachers from one county about their experiences with the KRA (Author, 2017). We found that participants perceived the administration of the KRA as burdensome and their use of the KRA to inform instruction was limited. As these responses could have been due to the adjustment period for transitioning to the new assessment (Jacobs et al., 2009; Roehrig et al., 2008) and several changes to the KRA were made for Y2, we asked, How did teachers’ perceptions of the KRA shift from Y1 to Y2?

Method: We used an embedded mixed-method design to collect both quantitative (fixed-choice questions) and qualitative (open-comment questions) online survey data regarding teachers’ perspectives. 841 kindergarten teachers with an average of 10.37 yrs kindergarten teaching experience (SD = 7.79) participated. Following mixed-method procedures (Creswell, 2015), we used descriptive, correlational, and thematic analyses to interpret the data.

Results: Teachers’ perspectives regarding the KRA administration changed positively from Y1 to Y2 (MY2 = 3.87, MY1 = 3.27, t(894) = 7.16 p = < .001; 5 point scale where 5 was strongly agree) partially due to the decreased administration time (Table 1). Importantly, in open-comment responses, 46% of Y2 teachers reported that the administration process was still time-consuming and 23% of teachers reported no changes in their experience from Y1 to Y2. Notably, there was no significant change in teachers’ reported use of the KRA to inform instruction (Table 2), with teachers in both years reporting minimal use. When asked in open-comment questions about the benefits of the KRA of students, only a small proportion of teachers reported some benefits. Seven percent used the KRA to differentiate learning experiences in Y2 (9% in Y1) and, new for Y2, 10% used the KRA to help to identify students at risk for later learning difficulties. The lack of perceived benefits and use of the KRA to inform instruction may be related to teachers’ perceptions that the KRA was incomplete and did not test information they wished to know (19%), or that the KRA was redundant with other required assessments (17%; both reported at Y1 23% and 12%). As one Y2 teacher commented, “We do our own assessments for this and do not use KRA.”

Discussion/Implications: More work is needed to fulfill the potential benefit of KRA systems to support both teachers and children.

Authors

• Rachel Erin Schachter, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  Presenting Author

• Erin Elizabeth Flynn, Portland State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shayne B Piasta, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author