District Assessments
The major comparisons used for this study were based on scores from
District-wide assessments. Table 1 describes the four assessments.
Please Insert Table 1
Adaptive Reading and Curriculum-Based Measurement for Reading are both
part of the Formative Assessment for Teachers (FAST), developed
primarily at the University of Minnesota. These assessments have several
purposes, including screening, progress monitoring, and to aid in the
analysis of students’ reading skills. There are several studies
supporting the theoretical underpinnings of these assessments Ardoin,
et. al, (2013), for example. Explanatory Performance Assessments were
developed by Columbia University to coincide with the goals of Common
Core. The District Unit Writing Assessments provide data on two
important State Core writing goals, narrative and opinion.
The assessments were administered during the school year. The District
Unit Writing Assessments were only administered once, in the Spring. The
other three assessments were administered three times: Fall, Winter, and
Spring. Assessment results for all fifty students were secured through
the help of the assigned Instructional Strategist. She was extremely
helpful in securing the scores, and printing reports based on those
scores for the second-grade classes. All fifty children had responded to
three of these assessment protocols during their kindergarten and first
grade years. The District Writing assessment was new in second grade.
This would indicate that responses on the assessments were a reliable
estimation of certain literacy skills.
Results from the assessment protocols were transmitted in the form of
reports, which documented assessment results for all second-grade
students. The data from children with signed assent forms were used in
the data analysis. The identification numbers of those children were
used to differentiate the experimental from the control group.
In order to begin to test our hypotheses, the data were then compiled
according to the assessment protocol. The data were then further
compiled according to group, experimental and control.
Two types of descriptive analysis were performed. First, mean and
standard deviation values were calculated for all children in each
group, according to all four assessment protocols. These data were
further analyzed in terms of assessment periods, fall, winter, and
spring.
The second type of analysis compared the average change in assessment
protocol for each group over the three assessment periods. Three of the
four assessment protocols were administered multiple times during the
school year. Comparison of the change data were then compiled comparing
the assessment periods: Fall-Winter, Winter-Spring, and Fall-Spring.
Finally, two types of inferential statistical analyses were performed. A
one-tailed ANOVA was calculated. Since this was viewed as a preliminary
study, an alpha level of .10 was used in the calculations. These results
will be reported for the three assessments (Adaptive Reading,
Curriculum-based measure of Reading, and Explanatory Performance
Assessment) which were administered to each student three times during
the school year. District-wide Writing Assessment was only administered
once, in the Spring. Comparison change data were also subjected to ANOVA
analysis for the above three assessments.
Effect size, reported as Cohen’s d, was calculated for the three
assessments, during the Fall, Winter, and Spring assessment periods.
Since there was a difference in the number of subjects in the
experimental as compared to the control group, it was decided
operationally to use the pooled standard deviation measure in the effect
size calculation. Interpretation of effect size data were based on
suggestions by Cohen (1988)