Linking Authentic Assessment to Child Standards

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Linking Authentic Assessment to Child Standards

• Rena Hallam, Ph.D.
• UT Early Learning Center for Research and
  Practice
• University of Tennessee
• rhallam_at_utk.edu

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Overview of Session

• Provide a brief overview of accountability issues
  and recommended assessment practices in early
  care and education
• Describe a model of using authentic assessment
  linked to child standards
• Discussion of implementation issues when using
  authentic assessment

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Early Childhood Assessment is.

• a flexible collaborative decision-making process
  in which teams of parents and professionals
  repeatedly revise their judgments and reach
  consensus about the changing developmental,
  education, medical, and mental health service
  needs of young children and their families.
  (Bagnato Neisworth, 1991, p. xi)

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Recommended Practice Standards for Assessment

• Used for a variety of purposes
• Acceptable to families and professionals
• Authentic practices
• Collaborative approaches
• Convergence of perspectives
• Accommodations are made for individual
  differences
• Sensitivity to small increments of change
• Congruence between design and implementation

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Child Assessment in the Context of Accountability

• Multiple dimensions of accountability (federal,
  state, program, and child and family level)
  requiring different types of data
• In general, accountability emphasizes
  outcomes/outputs rather than the processes of
  assessment and instruction
• Our challenge How do we support recommended
  practices in child assessment in the current
  context of accountability?

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Child Outcomes as Standards for Teaching and
Learning

• Provides a framework for teaching and learning in
  early childhood programs
• Teachers and administrators must interpret these
  standards into meaningful processes at the local
  level
• Early childhood programs need intensive support
  to make use of standards and to use them to
  inform their decision-making at the local level

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Project LINK

• Head Start/University Partnership grant
• Purpose to build the capacity of Head Start
  programs to link child assessment and curriculum
  to support positive outcomes for preschool
  children
• Focus on mandated Head Start Child Outcomes
• Concepts of Print
• Oral Language
• Phonological Awareness
• Concepts of Number

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Rationale for Project LINK

• Dissatisfaction with standardized assessment for
  preschoolers
• Disconnect between current assessment practices
  and Head Start Child Outcomes
• Recommended practices for assessment of young
  children

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Project LINK Model
Activity- Based Assessments
Individual Learning Goals/Plans
Group Curriculum Plans
Ongoing Data Collection (Portfolio)
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Project PLAY

• OSEP funded grant
• Focused on children with significant disabilities
• 4 components
• Play-based/arena assessments
• Meaningful IEP development
• Individualized planning
• Monitoring progress

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Linked System Approach
Assessment
Individualized Plans

• Summarizing Information
• Child Goals
• Family Outcomes

• Collecting Information
• Observations
• Direct Tests
• Report

• Curricular Approach
• Activity-Based Intervention

• Monitoring
• Weekly
• Quarterly
• Annual

Intervention
Evaluation
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Commonalities Between Projects

• Investigations the use of child standards as a
  framework for assessment and curriculum planning
• Commitment to recommended assessment practices
  for all young children
• Commitment to linking assessment and curriculum

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Issues - Implementation

• Shifting paradigms at multiple levels classroom
  program
• Moving from assessment days to assessment every
  day
• Teachers need intensive support to implement
  authentic assessment model
• Teachers need tools to support the link between
  assessment and curriculum
• Understanding the developmental continuum that
  undergirds child standards
• Understanding of this assessment in relationship
  to other types of assessment (screening,
  diagnostic, monitoring progress)

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Challenges - Reporting

• Logistics data entry and analysis
• Reporting data
• Comparing individual children over time
• Educating programs regarding the differences
  between criterion-referenced and norm-referenced
  assessments
• Exploring the use of aggregated
  criterion-referenced data

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Does Authentic Assessment Yield Reliable and
Valid Data?

• Need to determine the reliability and validity of
  this type of assessment model
• Designed and implemented set of three studies
• Inter-rater reliability
• Fidelity
• Concurrent Validity

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Inter-Rater Reliability

• Subjects
• 7 Head Start Teachers
• 7 Head Start Teaching Assistants
• Method
• Practiced scoring AEPS items on video
• Scored AEPS items Checked against score provided
  by author
• Results
• 7 of 7 teachers reached reliability at 80 (range
  85 - 93)
• 5 of 7 teaching assistants reached reliability at
  80 (range 75 - 90)

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Fidelity Study

• Subjects
• 6 Head Start teachers/teaching assistants who
  reached 80 or better on interrater reliability
  study
• Method
• Used fidelity tool to check procedural
  reliability of teachers implementation of
  authentic assessment variables within six (6)
  planned activities
• Results (average range across activities)
• Set up and preparation (2.80 - 3.00)
• Decision making (2.80 - 3.00)
• Materials (2.66 - 3.00)
• Embedding (1.83 - 2.60)
• Child choice (1.83 - 2.66)
• Procedures (1.66 - 2.00)

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Concurrent Validity

• Purpose To examine the concurrent validity
  between a traditional norm-referenced
  standardized test (BDI-2) and a curriculum-based
  assessment (AEPS)
• Subjects31 Head Start children Ranged in age
  from 48 months to 67 months (M60.68, SD4.65)
• Methods Six trained graduate students
  administered the BDI-2 and six trained Head start
  teachers administered the AEPS during a two-week
  period. Conducted seven (7) bivariate 2-tailed
  correlations (Pearsons and Spearmans)
• Results
• Five correlations suggested a moderate to good
  relationship between the BDI-2 and the AEPS
• Two correlations suggested a fair relationship
  between the BDI-2 and the AEPS

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Concurrent Validity Results

• Adaptive
• Self Care items from the BDI (M 66.03, SD
  6.67) were moderately correlated with Adaptive
  items from the AEPS (M 62.03, SD 13.57), r
  .57, n 31, p .01.
• Social
• Personal Social items from the BDI (M 175.15,
  SD 22.74) had a fair correlation with Social
  items from the AEPS (M 80.06, SD 16.33), r
  .50, n 31, p .01.
• Communication
• Communication items from the BDI (M 121.06, SD
  16.22) were moderately correlated with Social
  Communication items from the AEPS (M 88.61, SD
  14.20), r .54, n 31, p .01.

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• Gross Motor items from the BDI (M 82.76, SD
  4.70) had a fair correlation with Gross Motor
  items from the AEPS (M 30.10, SD 6.62), r
  .48, n 31, p .01.
• Fine Motor items from the BDI (M 52.45, SD
  5.30) were moderately correlated with Fine Motor
  items from the AEPS (M 26.39, SD 5.68), r
  .58, n 31, p .01.
• Perceptual Motor items from the BDI (M 27.73,
  SD 3.63) were moderately correlated with Fine
  Motor items from the AEPS (M 26.39, SD 5.68),
  r .58, n 31, p .01.
• Cognitive
• Cognitive items from the BDI (M 135.85, SD
  23.44) were moderately correlated with Cognitive
  items from the AEPS (M 81.26, SD 24.26), r
  .71, n 31, p .01.

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Synthesis and Recommendations

• Rigorous implementation of curriculum-based
  assessments requires extensive professional
  development and support of instructional staff.
• Findings suggest that CBAs, when implemented with
  rigor, have the potential to provide meaningful
  child progress data for program evaluation and
  accountability purposes.
• Additional large scale research is needed to
  further investigate the potential for
  curriculum-based assessments to address
  accountability demands.