NWEA Researchers to Present on Gameful Assessment, Growth Models, and Student Test-Taking Engagement and Performance at National Conferences in April

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NWEA

Mar 26, 2018, 09:00 ET

PORTLAND, Ore. (PRWEB) March 26, 2018 -- Researchers from NWEA, the not-for-profit assessment solutions provider, will be presenting at two prestigious education conferences in April 2018: the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, April 13-17; and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) Annual Meeting, April 12-16, both taking place in New York City.

At AERA at the New York Hilton Midtown, NWEA researchers will present the following:

  • On April 13, Meg Guerreiro, Ph.D. will present No Fun Games: Engagement Effects and Favorable Elements of Two Gameful Assessment Prototypes during the AERA poster session, “Issues in Assessment Development and Practice in Public School Classrooms.” The research examines the impact of two "gameful assessment" prototypes on student engagement and teacher perceptions in elementary school.
  • On April 14, Yeow Meng Thum, Ph.D. will present Fitting Data Series with Seasonality Using the Compound Polynomial (CP) Growth Model which describes a two-component additive polynomial growth curve model for interim assessment given each fall and spring. In the model, separate polynomials describe the between-year trend for the fall scores and the between-year changes in fall-to-spring gains, jointly, showing that the additive CP model provides a better fit to such data and how its results are easily interpreted.
  • On April 14, Deb Adkins will present Self-Administered Assessments: The Utility of iPads as a Platform for Engaging Early Assessment, examining the use of a self-administered, iPad assessment for early learners. The aim was to provide teachers with an assessment tool that could be incorporated into routine kindergarten playtime, and that students would perceive as “play.” Results revealed students were able to self-administer the assessment and exhibited high engagement. Teachers found the teacher interface to be intuitive and the assessment feedback to be of value for classroom instruction.

At NCME at The Westin New York at Times Square, NWEA researchers will present the following:

  • On April 14, Yeow Meng Thum, Ph.D. and Emily Bo, Ph.D. will present Using the Time Signature of Items to Control Testing Time in a CAT (Computerized Adaptive Testing) which shows that tagging CAT items by their time intensity functions allows for greater control over a needed balance between test length and testing time.
  • On April 14, Steven Wise, Ph.D. James Soland, Ph.D. will present The Effects of Effort Monitoring with Proctor Notification on Test-Taking Engagement which examines what happens when there are no personal consequences associated with performance on a test and whether test taking engagement represents a serious construct-irrelevant threat to validity in these situations.
  • On April 14, Steven Wise, Ph.D., James Soland, Ph.D., and Emily Bo, Ph.D. will present The Impact of Differential Test-Taker Engagement on Aggregated Scores: Much Ado About Nothing Much?, for which the researchers analyzed data from the OECD Test for Schools (based on PISA) to better understand the impact of disengaged test taking by students on test score validity.
  • On April 15, Megan Kuhfeld, Ph.D. will present Psychometric Properties of a Measure of Students’ Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Skills which represents an important first step in using interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies as valid predictors of adult educational and work outcomes.
  • On April 16, Sarah Tran, MPH, Sylvia Li, Ed.D., and Wei He, Ph.D. will present Using Propensity Score Matching to Examine How Accommodations Affect Reading Performance which provides empirical evidence of test accommodations working as intended for certain students with disabilities subgroups.
  • On April 17, Alex Broderson (University of Notre Dame) and Wei He, Ph.D. will present Approaches to Assembly and Administration of Adaptive Tests which presents a new method for reducing computation times for computer adaptive tests and compares the method to suggestions currently in the literature.

For NWEA NCME presentation times and details please see the NCME agenda posted at http://www.ncme.org.

NWEA maintains a research division, with a team of 40 psychometricians and research scientists, that conducts wide-ranging and independent research of K-12 education topics, including student engagement, equity, gender bias, early learning, and literacy.

About NWEA
NWEA® is a mission-driven, not-for-profit organization that supports students and educators worldwide by creating assessment solutions that precisely measure growth and proficiency—and provide insights to help tailor instruction. Educators in 145 countries and more than half the schools in the U.S. rely on our flagship interim assessment, MAP® Growth™; our progress monitoring and skills mastery tool, MAP® Skills™; our reading fluency and comprehension assessment, MAP® Reading Fluency™; and the OECD Test for Schools (based on PISA). Visit NWEA.org to find out how NWEA can partner with you to help all kids learn.

Jessica Hahn, NWEA, http://www.nwea.org/, 571-970-6440, [email protected]