120,000+ PLTW High School Students Tested in 2009/2010!

Assessment and Evaluation Update

PLTW wants to thank the teachers, state leaders and directors, affiliate directors, and district delegates for the 70% increase in student participation in the end of course assessments. As we close out the assessment season, we look forward to providing you with accurate, informative, and comprehensive reports about what we learned as a result of these assessments in your school, district, and state PLTW programs in the next 90 days.

End-of-Year Reminders and News

June 30th Exam Closing Date
If you need to administer tests after June 30th, contact kdonlon@pltw.org to make special arrangements.

Paper and Pencil-Based Exam Scores
If students have taken a print version of any PLTW exam this year the results should be reported to PLTW (kdonlon@pltw.org). PLTW will enter the results in the PLTW/Prometric database.

Exam Score Adjustments
As a part of developing and maintaining an assessment platform with the highest integrity, we regularly review and analyze the performance and quality of our exams. We consider factors such as:

· Percentage of students scoring correctly
· Discrimination and biserial correlation indices (measures of the ability of a question to discriminate between successful and unsuccessful test takers)
· Average student response time per question
· Average aggregate test time for completing the test
· Requests for clarity and accuracy of test questions

The results of these analyses indicate several scores adjustments need to be made.

Unified IED, POE, and DE Exams (50 question online exams for Spring 2010)
We've concluded that a conversion should be made to the total exam score for the unified IED, POE, and DE exams by adding 12 points to students' final score percentages. In other words, if he or she scored 58% on the IED, POE, and DE exams, their actual percentage should be adjusted to 70%. There is of course a 100 point maximum.

For those interested we specifically analyzed the level of difficulty of questions using a difficulty index of less than 20%, a biserial index less than +0.30, and question response time that was significantly above average. These provided a basis for determining the effectiveness of each question. We recommend teachers make the 12-point adjustments for the 50-question unified IED, POE and DE exams for Spring 2010 assessments to ensure students performing at postsecondary level are recognized.

CIM (40 question online exam for Fall and Spring 2009-2010)
Two questions were removed from the exam for reasons of inaccuracy and incorrect scoring. The passing score for these exams should be adjusted by 5 percentage points. In other words, if a student's score was a 65%, the new score would be 70%. There is of course a 100 point maximum.

We regret we are unable to retroactively adjust the individual student scores for these exams through the Prometric system. This document, along with a scaled score conversion charts will be posted on the PLTW Virtual Academy>Assessment and Evaluation section.

Reporting PLTW Exam Scores to Postsecondary Institutions
PLTW can now report/validate exam scores to postsecondary institutions with an appropriate request. A records release form will be available upon request. Teachers are encouraged to follow previous practices for reporting scores and grades that adhere to school district policies and practices. Questions regarding exam score reporting should be directed to kdonlon@pltw.org.

John Hansen
Director of Assessment and Evaluation
jhansen@pltw.org

Posted July 15, 2010

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