Panel ponders math, reading test scores

	SC	National	Difference
2006	56.5	56.1	(+ 0.4)
2007	56.2	56.1	(+ 0.1)
2008	56.2	56.2	0

If this were Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, we could say these scores mean the children are ever so slightly above average ... even if by less than a percentage point. In the real world, we can say we’re close to the national norm and any year-to-year variation is much too small to be statistically significant.

One statistic is significant. When we gave the CAAP test on April 2, we had 99 students who took it out of 160 eligible. That’s up from last year, when a number of eligible students were inadvertently left off a mailing list. In fact, it’s a better response rate than we usually get on faculty classroom assessment questionnaires (please see plea below).  

As always, a majority of students reported they took the CAAP test seriously, at least moderately so. On the “Self-Reported Performance Effort” survey included on the test, 49 filled in the bubble for “Tried My Best” on the math test, 39 said they “Gave Moderate Effort,” nine “Gave No Effort” and two left the question blank. On the reading test, 41 said they “Tried My Best,” 43 “Gave Moderate Effort” and 15 “Gave No Effort.” The math test was administered first and the reading test next, after a 10 minute break, which may well explain the fall-off in reported effort.

So what does all this mean? That’s what we’re trying to find out.

As we review our overall assessment efforts this year, a General Education subcommittee or working group including Dave Holland and Molly Finley has been looking at the CAAP tests. They are intrigued with the idea of phasing out the reading test and replacing it with a new reading skills test now available from ACT Inc., the vendor. The idea has support on the full committee, with Darlene Snyder advocating more writing in the sciences, but before we make any changes, we want to get a better handle on what we can learn from the reading test.

At our April meeting, we voted to ask an ACT representative to visit campus and help us review the reading test data and recommend further action. I want that meeting to be public, and I hope interested faculty will attend.

In the meantime, let us know what you think about Gen Ed testing in general, the reading test in particular and what directions you’d like to see us take. Detailed information about the CAAP test is available on line at http://www.act.org/caap/index.html. Please check it out and give us your feedback.

Classroom assessment questionnaires

Completed questionnaires are trickling in to the Academic Affairs Office, or to the Academic Affairs mailbox in the Dawson Hall mailroom. And there’s still plenty of time to fill yours out and get it in. The better our response, the better our data.

When I sent out the questionnaires, I got back an email from a faculty member saying: "I used none of the assessment tools." I wrote her back saying:

Thanks for responding to the questionnaire. It's important for us to know what classroom assessment techniques our instructors are using, of course, but it's also important to document our activities for inspection by outside stakeholders at accreditation time. So your response is useful in that regard.

I don't use the techniques listed on the questionnaire, either. What I do instead is to check the blank for "other" and list the methods I use (mostly self-reflective essays). Then on the second sheet, I briefly note a change I made in my teaching strategies as a result of doing formative assessment in one or two of my classes.

I can see how the questionnaires can be confusing because we list eight specific assessment techniques, but we don't want  to imply that only the eight techniques listed on the questionnaire are considered valid. In fact, as more instructors become familiar with assessment, we're seeing more and more people checking "other" techniques as they develop their own or read about still others in the literature.

If nothing else, your completed questionnaires help us document to the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges, the state of Illinois and other outside stakeholders that our organizational culture is one that values assessment. More importantly, they help us gauge faculty needs and interest for planning future workshops, topics for newsletter articles and other initiatives designed to help us all do a better job of teaching. There was a time five or 10 years ago when we'd all read "Angelo & Cross" (a widely available 1993 primer called Classroom Assessment Techniques, A Handbook for College Teachers by Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross) and choose a "flavor of the month" assessment technique because we didn't know what else to do. (I say "we." I mean that's how I started. Others, I know, had a better grip on it.) Perhaps the questionnaire reflects those days too obviously, and it ought to be changed as we grow more sophisticated.

But in the meantime, please take a minute or two to reflect on your teaching practices and fill out the questionnaire. In case you’ve misplaced it, I attached blank questionnaires to the email message containing the link to this month's newsletter.