Analyzing Aggregated Classroom Assessments: Toward a More Prominent Role in Research and Evaluation

• In Event: Poster Session 17
  In Poster Session: Classroom Assessment: Current and Future Directions

Abstract

Teachers often use assessment instruments in their classrooms from various sources, including teacher-made tests, with unknown psychometric properties. While an individual teacher may use such assessments in a pre/post design to measure student learning gains, reflect on teaching, and evaluate the quality of an instructional unit, it is uncertain whether these data could be used to inform program improvement or evaluation across classrooms or across schools. The present study uses a multilevel Monte Carlo simulation study to evaluate the use of unit pre/post assessment data aggregated across classroom assessments with varying difficulty and reliability to measure the effect of this design on Type I error, observed power, and bias. Findings suggest that aggregated classroom assessments are a viable data set.

Authors

• Matthew Ryan Lavery, South Carolina Education Oversight Committee

• Joyce Watson Nutta, University of Central Florida

• Alison Youngblood, Western Kentucky University