Student Assessment and the Use of Measure of Academic Progress (MAP)

Assessment Inquiry
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Assessment Inquiry
Assessment Inquiry: Introduction
Student assessment involves sitting beside learners, observing, evaluating, and guiding their learning. Educators are required to make proper decisions based on the skills and knowledge that students should obtain. They can use various strategies, such as performance evaluation and testing, to measure the learning progress of students. Effective assessments enable educators to collect relevant data about student learning and apply it to improve their instructions and teaching methods to foster learners’ academic achievements. In particular, an assessment inquiry is essential since it entails analyzing and justifying problems related to student assessment to promote proper learning in educational institutions. The Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) testing refers to an adaptive test that is widely used to help educators, administrators, and parents to improve students' learning by assisting learners to make well-informed decisions that foster their academic growth (Meier & Knoester, 2017). A MAP test is a computerized adaptive test that uses an algorithm tailored toward measuring the academic growth of an individual student. The questions provided have multiple choices, and test takers are supposed to select the correct answer to go to the next question. If the learner chooses the correct answer, the next question asked gets harder. However, if one gives an incorrect answer, the next question asked is easier.
Although a MAP test in mathematics can help teachers monitor, analyze, evaluate, and improve student learning, it has a primary issue that will be discussed in the entirety of this paper. The key problem with MAP testing is that it fails to accurately reflect learners’ intellectual capabilities. The Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) says that the MAP test measures a student's learning growth by asking questions relating to how learners are taught in the classroom. Besides, the results are tabulated to indicate a student’s growth rate by comparing it to the normed growth rate of similar students nationwide (Meier & Knoester, 2017). As such, despite the MAP test having an algorithm that asks students varying questions based on the correct or wrong answers they give, it compares learners’ growth rates. Some of the questions asked to delve into the assessment problem with MAP testing include: Why does MAP testing in mathematics ask students different questions? Does the test take into account the curricula? Is there a standard period for taking the test? Since multiple-choice questions are asked, what happens if students guess the answers they provide? How does the teacher use the MAP test outcomes to improve the learning process? The primary problem related to assessment with MAP testing is the possible inaccuracy in evaluating learners’ intellectual capabilities, particularly in mathematics.
Assessment Inquiry: Literature Review
Effective educators must assess their students to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Notably, assessment is crucial not only for mathematics alone but for all subjects. That is the best way for educators to understand how they can modify their teaching strategies, instructions, and classroom activities to improve learning. In addition, the tests used should allow parents to identify their children’s growth rate. As such, student assessment began a long time ago to gauge learners’ academic progress. Teachers, parents, communities, and policymakers should know whether students achieve the established learning goals (Hilliard, 2000). Standardized assessments have been used in the past where learners took tests with similar questions. For example, a mathematics teacher can set a test of algebra questions for a specific grade to gauge learners’ comprehension and application of the concepts, procedures, and formulas taught in the classroom.
In 1785, Ezra Stiles, Yale’s president, examined 58 seniors and recorded in his diary involving how students demonstrated their knowledge acquisition publicly (Schneider & Hutt, 2014). Although the public examinations system did not last long, it significantly guides contemporary assessments, such as MAP testing, used today by many educational institutions. Stiles used a classification scheme that was best used by the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos examination, which was introduced in the early 18th century (Schneider & Hutt, 2014). Tripos was organized like a multi-day academic tournament. Students were usually ranked before the commencement of an examination. After every day of taking the test, they were re-seeded. On that note, as learners moved up based on their performance, they were given more challenging questions. In addition, their opponents became increasingly tougher, which made these examinations more competitive. The highest scorers were rewarded by being given a portion of their school’s endowment (Schneider & Hutt, 2014). Nevertheless, low scorers were marked by their academic performances.
Assessing students’ academic progress remains a crucial facet of the learning process. In the current context, numerous things must be examined when considering the effectiveness of the assessment. Curricula ideologies and cultural representations are two primary things that should be taken into account when assessing learners. Specifically, a curriculum comprises formal materials used by an educational institution to comprehensively indicate a set of academic materials that should be used in a particular subject to foster learning (Aukerman, Grovet, & Belfatti, 2019). For instance, a mathematics curriculum indicates the topics and the depth of concepts that should be covered in a particular grade and the time needed. In addition, the way in which these assessments are administered significantly determines students’ perceptions and seriousness in taking them. Angela Valenzuela introduces something called aesthetic caring, which depicts the significance of a good relationship between students, educators, and school administrators or officials (Duncan-Andrade, 2009). In that light, objective and impersonal language comprises terms, such as standardized curricula, strategies, and goals, which are used in making proper decisions on how to evaluate students’ academic performances. For sure, it is only when the educators and learners have a good relationship that effective assessment that measures students’ learning progress can be done.
Currently, student assessment is more focused on measuring learners’ individual growth and academic progress. The introduction of the MAP testing by the NWEA emphasized evaluating a specific learner growth rate, meaning it does not prioritize students’ academic performance comparison. Deborah Meier and Matthew Knoester argue that it has become fundamentally complex to assess the knowledge and skills acquired by students (Meier & Knoester, 2017). On that note, the current assessments might only be considering the schools’ or educators’ interests and forget about the validity of the results obtained. Educational institutions, academic departments, and educators might have good intentions when assessing students’ academic progress. For instance, they can understand how to modify their syllabuses, and teaching strategies, or add more relevant learning materials. However, the most significant issue is that many students might not be concentrating or giving these assessments the attention it deserves so that their scholarly performances can be effectively reflected. Gloria Ladson-Billings raises a vital point by discussing how education debt might influence the comprehension of achievement in schools (Ladson-Billings, 2006). For example, there is a significant achievement gap that cannot be ignored between disadvantaged learners and their white counterparts. The actual reflection of students’ academic progress can only be achieved if the right assessment is done by balancing all factors that might give students from specific demographics or communities an advantage over others.
MAP testing might harm students’ intellectual capabilities due to their failure of giving a true reflection of the learner's academic progress. Gail Sullivan examines essential factors that facilitate the effectiveness of the academic assessment. The first one is reliability, which means that the assessment instrument gives similar outcomes every time a test is taken by maintaining the same setting and subjects. A good assessment tool must give dependable and consistent results (Sullivan, 2011). Another crucial factor is validity. Notably, it means that the assessment instrument should give accurate answers, which lead to reliable and credible conclusions. Some of the things that should not be reflected in academic testing are educational inequality, particularly arising from the political, social, and economic spheres of life (Gamoran & Bruch, 2017). The most significant thing should be for the assessment instrument to measure students’ learning progress accurately to give valid results that parents, teachers, administrators, and policymakers can use to improve the learning process.
Assessment Inquiry: Methods
The best research method to gather supportive information that can help to analyze and justify the primary issue related to MAP testing is the qualitative descriptive study. The primary objective of the qualitative descriptive study is to gather relevant information that reveals the existence of the pr...