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SOME DESIGN FEATURES OF OHIO'S TESTS

CONTENTS
[X] Test Design Methodology
[X] The Academic Achievement Gap
.....[X] Test Scoring Methodology

A source of extensive information on the design and application of Ohio's state-wide testing program may be found on the Ohio Department of Education's web site [X] www.ode.state.oh.us. Point to the "VISITOR" drop-down menu, click on "Families", point to the "Ohio Education System" drop-down menu, click on "Statewide Testing", click on "Student Test Report", etc.

In theory, Ohio should use criteria-based testing for assessing how well students have learned the material defined in the State's academic content standards. (The difference between criteria-based testing and norm-referenced testing (standardized tests) is explained on page NORM-REFERENCED AND CRITERIA-BASED TESTS [X].) However, as is explained below under the heading ACHIEVEMENT GAP, all test questions are not purely criteria-based.

TEST DESIGN METHODOLOGY
Ohio strives to develop test questions that are (a) appropriate in content and difficulty and (b) accurate and consistent in the measuring of student learning. The question development process uses the following steps:

1. A grade-level and subject-specific draws up a blueprint or test specification of the for a test-design contractor. The blueprint spells out the proportion of test content to be devoted to academic content standard and its subunits.
   
2. The testing contractor creates the test questions.
   
3. Department of Education employees review the questions for alignment, content accuracy, format, and grammatical guidelines.
4. A Fairness/Sensitivity Committee of diverse backgrounds checks to see if the questions are fair to the various groups of students.
5. A Content Advisory Committee reviews each question (called an "item") to see if grade-level appropriate and accurately addresses the intended subject matter. This is the committee that judges the grade-appropriateness of the vocabulary used in the test questions. Page TEST DESIGNERS' VOCABULARY-CONTROL MANUAL [X] explains how the proposed manual would be of help.
6. The new items are than field tested by embedded them in a actual test as a non-counting test question. For example, if 60 new (or trial) questions are to be tested in one year, the 60 questions would be divided into ten blocks of six trial questions each. If the "real" test had 40 question, the administered test would carry 46 questions. Each of the ten blocks (six questions each) would be added at different locations in the state.
7. After the field testing is compete, the Fairness/Sensitivity and Content-Advisory Committees use the field-test data to evaluate each question. If the evaluation indicates a question needs to be modified, it is then field tested again.

THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT GAP
The "academic achievement gap" and the "academic test-score gap" are two different gaps. Without student learning targets (academic content standards) at each grade there would always be a significant academic achievement gap between "fast learners" and the "slow learners". However, Ohio does have learning targets. As a result, teachers can minimize the test-score gap by encouraging fast learners to learn beyond state standards and at the same time work hard to bring slow learners up to Ohio's academic content standards. However, for this to happen, the design of the learning targets must: (a) be within the reach of most students, (b) be clearly defined, and (c) be appropriately tested with pre-disclosed vocabulary. If these design goals are not met, the academic achievement gap will be a built-in phenomenon.

The issue of realistic learning targets (item (a) above) is closely linked to the time-to-teach topic raised on page NEED FOR REALISTIC AND CLEAR ACADEMIC STANDARDS [X]. Ohio's academic content standards are fairly concise (issue (b) above). The pre-disclosed vocabulary part of issue (c) above is discussed on page TEST DESIGNERS' VOCABULARY-CONTROL MANUAL [X]. The seven-step test-question development process described above covers a large part of issue (c), appropriately testing. Another aspect of appropriately testing is the scoring methodology used in Ohio.

Test Scoring Methodology
Students, who complete Ohio achievement tests, receive a "scaled score" rather than just a measure of X questions correct out of Y questions or a percentage-correct grade such as 80%. By converting the number of correctly answered questions (raw score) to a scaled score, test designers are able to give more weight to some questions. The March 2004 grade 3 reading test used scaled scores ranging from 260 (zero correct answers) up to 503 (49 or all correct answered). Presumably, the assigning of a scaled score above 200 to even the low achieving students has a positive psychological benefit. More details on the March 2004 grade 3 reading test are given on the Ohio Department of Education web site at [X] www.ode.state.oh.us. Point to the "VISITOR" drop-down menu, click on "Families", point to the "Ohio Education System" drop-down menu, click on "Statewide Testing", click on "Student Test Report", etc.

In addition to the questions that covered the academic content standard for 3rd grade and below, the 49-question test also carries several "hard" questions. This practice allows the State to rate students as: limited, basic, proficient, accelerated, and advanced. The ratings of accelerated and advanced allows parents to know that their child is testing above grade level. Also, without the hard questions, ratings above proficient wouldn't make sense.

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This page last updated: January 11, 2005