Assessments and Reporting Assessment Data

Program reports must include aggregated results of seven or eight assessments of candidate proficiency. Where possible, three years’ of data should be included, organized according to the categories used in your scoring guide or evaluation criteria. The percentage of candidates achieving at acceptable levels for each category should be given. (Note that, because of introduction of a new Web-based process, until Fall 2006 data from a single semester can be submitted if additional data are not available.)

In designing assessments, keep in mind that they must be fair, accurate, and consistent. NCATE indicates that assessments must be

Appropriate and designed to assess meaningful cognitive demands and skill requirements

Congruent with the complexity, cognitive demands, and skill requirements described in the standards

At a level consistent with the standards, challenging but reasonable for candidates who are ready to teach or to take on other professional responsibilities

Well defined

Credible and unbiased

Systematically evaluated by institutions that use them

Scoring

Design of scoring tools (such as rubrics) is as important as design of the assessments themselves. These tools should

Address relevant, meaningful attributes of candidate knowledge and performance related to the standards

Have written and shared criteria for judging performance that indicate the qualities by which levels of performance can be differentiated

Be explicit enough to anchor judgments about degree of success

Define what is being sought and be expressed clearly

Keep in mind that, to be reliable, scoring of assessments must be yielding approximately the same values across raters.

Examples

Imagine that an institution offers a course in which students must complete a case study of the literacy development of a young child. Materials related to evaluation of the assignment and inclusion in the program report might include the following samples:

Assignment guidelines