A study of the relationship of the Diagnostic Reading Assessment 2 to the Missouri Assessment Program in communication arts

The Cape Girardeau Public School district has participated in summative assessment practices as mandated federal requirements. As required in Missouri, the district currently uses the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) as its summative measurement. To gauge progress throughout the school year, the district also uses a variety of formative assessments. One of the assessments used to measure progress in the area of communication arts is the Diagnostic Reading Assessment, Second Edition (DRA2). The purpose of the study was to conduct a correlational analysis of the DRA2 and the MAP to determine if the performance on the DRA2 could predict a student’s performance on the MAP. Correlation coefficients were computed between the DRA2 scores and MAP scores for grades 3 and 4 for both the 2009-10 and 201011 school years. Correlation coefficients indicated a strong to very strong correlation for both cohorts when comparing both the Grade 3 and 4 DRA2 scores to the Grade 3 and 4 MAP scores. There was also a very strong correlation when comparing the Grade 3 DRA2 scores to the Grade 4 MAP score. Therefore, the DRA2 does appear to be a good predictor of performance on the MAP.