Educational Leadership team researching state’s assessment efforts

Analyzing efforts to implement Wyoming’s large-scale assessment program, both in terms of meeting federal regulations and in advancing student progress, is the goal of a research project launched by Department of Educational leadership faculty and graduate students.

The newly-launched Proficiency Assessment for Wyoming Students (PAWS) is a centerpiece of the state’s program, and it will be a focal point of the multi-phase research project.

“The basic question is, what is the effect of this state assessment system on instruction in Wyoming,” Alan Moore, associate professor of educational leadership, says of the research team’s goal.

Staffing the project are team leader Moore, assistant professor of educational leadership Robin Dexter, and a full-time Ph.D. student April Caudill. The Wyoming Department of Education grant funding the project also supports two to three part-time research assistants.

In the project’s first phase, completed in April 2006, the team gathered data from districts, schools and teachers that will provide a baseline for the next steps. The multilayered methodology employed in this pilot mirrors the likely approach that will be taken in phase two and beyond.

In phase one, research team members interviewed staff – administrators, principals and teachers – in several school districts around the state. Topics of focus in those interviews included the existence and format of assessment systems, systems used to track individual student progress, processes to support student achievement, professional development opportunities, and the scope and format of the district’s body of evidence plan for high school graduation.

They also administered an online survey to school administrators, which provided additional information on such topics as knowledge of assessment systems, implementation of available systems, anticipated adoption implementation plans, and theassessment ofstandards not assessed by PAWS.

Phase 2, which recently received funding from the Wyoming Department of Education, will incorporate interviews and surveys on related topics, with the potential to add case studies of individual schools over time. Document analysis will continue to play a central role in research design, including reviews of school improvement plans and body of evidence systems.

“I see it as an umbrella of many little studies,” Moore says of the overall research plan. A proposal for a third phase is anticipated, which would provide five years of data to analyze.

This project represents a rare opportunity to study the evolution of a new approach to large-scale assessment.

“It is good to catch a system at the very beginning, before it gets implemented, to be able to do a longitudinal study,” Moore says. “As it gets rolled out, as it starts to take hold, what effects do we see?”

Longitudinal analysis should be achievable at the state level, but also at levels where impacts on students and teaching are more directly affected. Profiling school district efforts to implement assessment policy in ways that both meet state and federal requirements and support student achievement offers a richer level of understanding.

“If we’re able to capture those in district profiles over time, I’m hoping we’re going to be able to make some statements about effects,” Moore says.

The UW research project is one of only a handful underway at the national level, particularly as an opportunity to test the application of instructionally supportive assessment on a large scale. It is possible, Moore says, that lessons learned from Wyoming could prove useful to other states and local districts.

For more information on assessment in the state, visit the Wyoming Department of Education website at http://www.k12.wy.us. For more information on the ongoing research underway at UW, visit http://uwyo.edu/AssessmentStudy.

Educational Leadership team researching state’s assessment efforts

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