Performance Assessments for Adult Education Exploring the Measurement Issues: Report of a Workshop (2002) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 84-91
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From page 84... ...
84 6 Challenges in Adult Education The discussion during the workshop highlighted a number of keychallenges that must be addressed when performance assessmentsare used for accountability in the federal adult education system: (1) defining the domain of knowledge, skills, and abilities in a field where there is no single definition of the domain; (2)
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From page 85... ...
CHALLENGES IN ADULT EDUCATION 85 order to have reliable and valid assessments to compare students' outcomes across classes, programs, and states, a common domain must be used as the basis for the assessment. This poses a challenge to the field of adult education because, as several speakers pointed out, there is no consensus on the content to be assessed.
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From page 86... ...
86 PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS FOR ADULT EDUCATION FIGURE 6-1 EFF Standards for Adult Literacy and Lifelong Learning SOURCE: NIFL, 2002. be a common domain with agreed-upon critical skills and knowledge and types of tasks that allow students to demonstrate these skills and knowledge.
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From page 87... ...
CHALLENGES IN ADULT EDUCATION 87 accountability requirements, to provide feedback to students and/or teachers, and for program evaluation. As Pamela Moss explained, different purposes bring different kinds of validity issues, and David Thissen, Stephen Dunbar, and Jim Impara noted that it is difficult, if not impossible to develop one assessment that adequately serves such varied purposes.
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From page 88... ...
88 PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS FOR ADULT EDUCATION cautioned that in order for multiple performance assessments to be developed and calibrated to the NRS, they would need to measure the same domains. If they do not, then the less rigorous process of social moderation could be used to ascertain the match between scores on the assessments and the NRS levels.
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From page 89... ...
CHALLENGES IN ADULT EDUCATION 89 states use for development and training activities. Because the federal allotment is the sole funding for these activities for most states, it is unlikely that individual states can afford substantial costs for implementing a performance assessment program.
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From page 90... ...
90 PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS FOR ADULT EDUCATION and the system. Under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal government has taken the lead in the evaluation of K-12 assessment systems.
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From page 91... ...
CHALLENGES IN ADULT EDUCATION 91 DEVELOPING EXPERTISE A refrain heard throughout the workshop was the need to have trained and qualified individuals for all phases of performance assessment development, administration, and scoring. A number of presenters observed that the technical expertise of most adult basic education program staff is not sufficient for them to undertake assessment development.
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