The Standards and Assessments Peer Review– Pg 7
Alignment
Critical Element
The State must document their coherent approach to ensuring alignment between each of its assessments and the content and achievement standards the assessment is designed to measure.
Evidence
Provide documentation of the process used including stakeholder involvement, ongoing quality control reviews, how the alignment is maintained over time, reports of alignment studies and how the results were addressed.
Critical Element
Provide evidence that the assessments and standards are aligned comprehensively including range, degree of cognitive complexity, level of difficulty, and depth.
Evidence
Provide evidence such as assessment plans, assessments blueprints, and item/task specifications. Include information that shows which standards are assessed and which are not along with the weights. Include any reports of independent alignment studies and studies of cognitive complexity of the assessments.
Critical Element
Assessments and standards must be aligned in terms of both content (knowledge) and process (how to do it).
Evidence
Provide evidence that processes and skills required in the content standards are assessed as well as the content.
Critical Element
Assessments and standards must be aligned in terms of degree and pattern of emphasis.
Evidence
Include information on how the assessments reflect the weights of the content standards and their sub-domains.
Critical Element
Assessments must yield scores that reflect the full range of the state’s academic achievement standards.
Evidence
Provide evidence that the state’s assessment system provides a sufficient number of items to assess students at all levels of achievement–for example, basic, proficient, advanced.
Critical Element
Assessment results must be expressed in terms of achievement standards, not just scale scores or percentiles.
Evidence
In order for members of the school community to see the alignment between the standards and assessments, reports must include information on how the students perform relative to the achievement standards. Provide evidence such as sample student score reports.
Critical Element
Provide evidence such as sample student score reports.
Provide evidence on how it maintains and/or improves alignment of assessments and standards over time.
Evidence
Documentation should be provided on planned alignment reviews, external studies of alignment, and how assessments are modified if content standards are revised.
*Note:
- Item difficulty is not a sufficient indicator of cognitive complexity.
- Evidence should include sample items which are illustrative of cognitive difficulty. Documentation and sample items should reflect the use of multiple measures and items that require cognitively complex response processes.
- If there is a reliance on multiple-choice items, the state is responsible for providing evidence that the items span the ranges of both difficulty and cognitive complexity specified in its standards.
