Kate,

This is a good example of the type of analyses I suggested in my
previous post on this topic.  Thanks, Kate! 

-----Original Message-----
From: assessment-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:assessment-bounces at nifl.gov]
On Behalf Of Kate Diggins
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 1:32 PM
To: Assessment at nifl.gov
Subject: [Assessment 767] Teaching gains over more than one year

I'd like to respond to David Rosen's question regarding programs which
track student gains beyond the bounds of the fiscal year.  At my
program, students stay for an average of 15 months, and they are
permitted to stay for five years if they wish (and many of them do), so
we track them from start to finish.  We are a small program, serving
about 250 students a year, so we take a fairly low-tech approach.  After
pretesting with BEST "Plus" and BEST Literacy, we plot their scores on
line graphs (two separate graphs - one for each of the two tests) and
continue to plot their scores for each subsequent test.  As time goes
by, the lines representing a student's progress slope gradually upward
across the pages. This is a graphic that the students can easily
understand, and it enables us to see which skill areas require emphasis
for individual students.  Having a complete picture of a student's
testing history also allows us to show students that an occasional
disappointing test sco  re may be an aberration from a generally upward
trend.

Kate Diggins
Director of Adult Education
Guadalupe Schools
(801) 531-6100 (x-1107)
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