What

1
Whats New in Assessment

• Presented bySandra Pritz, Senior
  ConsultantNational Occupational Competency
• Testing Institute

2
Treasure What We Measure

• We cant manage what we cant measure
• Assessments must authentically reflect both the
  the CTE program and workplace demandsdo these
  align?
• Multi-faceted assessments needed for faithful
  representation

3
Assessment of technical literacy in
career-technical programs

• State/national academic standards demand
  attention.
• High school students must pass academic tests for
  graduation.
• Workplace demands for technical literacy are
  increasing.
• Academics in context tend to be student-friendly.

4
How Should Career-Technical Programs Assess
Academic Skills?

• In the context of the students career-technical
  program
• In alignment with state and national academic
  standards
• In ways that help students translate to other
  tests they will need to take
• Embedded In their career-technical tests, such as
  end-of-course or program

5
Value Added to Career-Technical Programs by Tests

• External and effective
• Critical competencies benchmarked to industry
  standards
• Correlated to state and national academic
  standards

6
Critical Competencies Are Central

• Students should recognize them as learning
  objectives with standards, move toward
  self-assessment.
• Teachers should teach to them in learning
  activities.
• They should be assessedin multiple wayswith the
  results used to help focus instruction, for the
  group and for individuals.

7
Process to Use Multiple Tests to Improve
Instruction

• Written testspractice at all levels by including
  in assignments mirror types of items on HSTW
  tests, include academics embedded in the
  technical industry/program

8
Performance Tests

• Practice by including scenarios in assignments
• Mirror real job tasks, time, tool selection,
  procedures
• Open-ended, can apply a rubric, and can easily
  assess at higher levels
• Some aspects yes/no, some scaled, some
  qualitative judgment by experts

9
Coupling Written and Performance Tests

• Reflects reality better than one or the other
  alone
• Provides for multiple forms of assessment
• Gives all students a chance to succeed
• Enables mutual reinforcement of learning
• States and schools using NOCTI tests have
  documented improvement in instruction from using
  analyses of test results.

10
Academic Skills Measured in Context
Career and Technical Skills
Academic Skills
Academic Skills Career Technical
Skills Comprehensive Assessment
11
NOCTI Academics Correlation Project

• 7 NOCTI job-ready tests correlated to academic
  standards for math, science, and language arts
• - National standards (NCTM, NSES, NCTE)
• - State standards (NY, CA, FL)
• Several business/industry tests correlated to
  national standards

12
Academics Identified

• Written tests contain embedded academics that
  match standards in all three disciplines.
• Performance tests contain a higher percentage of
  embedded academics than written tests, and the
  items tend to be at higher levels of proficiency.

13
Ways NOCTI can help

• By providing performance as well as written
  tests, NOCTI can help assess academics at higher
  levels.
• NOCTI can respond to the need to reinforce
  academic and employability instruction through
  assessment, can customize tests and test reports
  to isolate academics scores.
• NOCTI can provide states the service of
  cross-correlating its tests to their state
  standards.

14
Ways NOCTI can help (cont.)Workplace Readiness
Test

• NOCTI Workplace Readiness Test measuring
  employability skills is being up-scaled
• A large and stellar Subject Matter Expert Team
  has rated the critical competencies
• Career Cluster Foundation Skills will be assessed

15
For Tech Prep Programs

• NOCTIs critical competency lists can be used to
  document curriculum alignment for secondary and
  post-secondary articulation.
• NOCTI can validate student mastery of
  competencies at the secondary level for
  transition to and possible credit at the
  post-secondary level.

16
States Career Cluster Initiative Moves to
Assessment Stage

• NASDCTEc has named NOCTI a developer and the
  provider of its cluster, pathways, foundation
  tests.
• NOCTI is administering the test developed for the
  National Health Sciences cluster.
• NOCTI is developing 3 pathways tests in
  construction for PA, to be used nationally.
• NOCTI is developing a Workplace Readiness
  foundation assessment.

17
How Data from NOCTI Score Reports Can Drive
Program Improvement

• Score Reports
• Coordinators Report
• Individual Student Reports
• Customized Reporting Availablee.g. integrated
  academics
• Statistical Information
• Group Data
• Site Data
• State Data
• National Data
• Student Certificates
• Personalized Contact Assistance

Note
All results are broken down into duty, category
and total scores.
18
Pre and Post Test Gain Analysis
19
Thank You