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The Quality of Local District Assessments Used in Nebraska's School‐Based Teacher‐Led Assessment and Reporting System (STARS)
Author(s) -
Brookhart Susan M.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
educational measurement: issues and practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.158
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1745-3992
pISSN - 0731-1745
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-3992.2005.00007.x
Subject(s) - rubric , clarity , quality assessment , quality (philosophy) , psychology , school district , mathematics education , reading (process) , session (web analytics) , inter rater reliability , medical education , reliability (semiconductor) , external quality assessment , rating scale , medicine , computer science , political science , developmental psychology , biochemistry , chemistry , philosophy , power (physics) , epistemology , pathology , quantum mechanics , physics , world wide web , law
A sample of 293 local district assessments used in the Nebraska STARS (School‐based Teacher‐led Assessment and Reporting System), 147 from 2004 district mathematics assessment portfolios and 146 from 2003 reading assessment portfolios, was scored with a rubric evaluating their quality. Scorers were Nebraska educators with background and training in assessment. Raters reached an agreement criterion during a training session; however, analysis of a set of 30 assessments double‐scored during the main scoring session indicated that the math ratings remained reliable during scoring, while the reading ratings did not. Therefore, this article presents results for the 147 mathematics assessments only. The quality of local mathematics assessments used in the Nebraska STARS was good overall. The majority were of high quality on characteristics that go to validity (alignment with standards, clarity to students, appropriateness of content). Professional development for Nebraska teachers is recommended on aspects of assessment related to reliability (sufficiency of information and scoring procedures).