|
|
Education Week
PARCC Scores
Lower for Students Who Took Exams on Computers
By Benjamin Herold
Students who took the 2014-15 PARCC exams via computer tended to score
lower than those who took the exams with paper and pencil—a revelation
that prompts questions about the validity of the test results and poses
potentially big problems for state and district leaders.
Officials from the multistate Partnership for Assessment of Readiness
for College and Careers acknowledged the discrepancies in scores across
different formats of its exams in response to questions from Education
Week.
“It is true that this [pattern exists] on average, but that doesn’t
mean it occurred in every state, school, and district on every one of
the tests,” Jeffrey Nellhaus, PARCC’s chief of assessment, said in an
interview.
“There is some evidence that, in part, the [score] differences we’re
seeing may be explained by students’ familiarity with the
computer-delivery system,” Nellhaus said.
In general, the pattern of lower scores for students who took PARCC
exams by computer is the most pronounced in English/language arts and
middle- and upper-grades math.
Hard numbers from across the consortium are not yet available. But the
advantage for paper-and-pencil test-takers appears in some cases to be
substantial, based on independent analyses conducted by one prominent
PARCC state and a high-profile school district that administered the
exams...
Read the rest of the article at Education Week
|
|
|
|
