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Board hears explanation of adaptive PM testing and its effect on reading/math proficiency scores
Summary
District assessment staff explained how adaptive progress‑monitoring (PM) tests change complexity by student responses, noted that students cannot skip questions without penalty, and said that this undermines simple error counting when interpreting proficiency shifts between PM1 and PM2.
District assessment staff explained adaptive progress‑monitoring (PM) testing and how changes in test complexity affect interpretation of reading and math proficiency scores.
Mr. Schneider, an assessment staff member who led the explanation, told the board that the PM tests are adaptive and change question difficulty depending on a student’s answers. He said the algorithm grades based on question complexity rather than raw counts of missed items. “A child could miss 10 and still score at a level 3. A child could miss 10 and score at a level 1,” Mr. Schneider said, describing how the test’s scoring depends on which items were answered correctly or incorrectly.
Mr. Schneider explained a major behavioral change required for students and teachers: students can no longer safely skip and return to questions the way they might on paper tests because answering and moving on immediately affects the algorithm’s trajectory. He said students can flag items and return, but once an answer is submitted it influences the test’s next items and the scoring algorithm. “If you move on, you… can't move on unless you mark a question. So you could mark it to come back… but when you answer it, if it’s wrong, the algorithm takes over and you go to an easier question,” he said.
Board members asked how adaptive testing changes comparability across schools and states. District leaders said adaptive testing is used in other contexts (for example, the GRE) and that test providers and states work to create scores that are comparable, but acknowledged the new format raises questions about how to interpret and communicate year‑to‑year comparisons and proficiency percentages.
Several board members and the superintendent noted the assessment and instructional implications: teachers must now teach test‑taking strategies as well as content, and staff are conducting data chats with students to explain what adaptive scores mean and to prepare them for more challenging initial items on end‑of‑year assessments.
