Methodology APA used three approaches to answer the questions described above. A statewide survey was used for Phase 1, whereas Phase 2 of the study consisted of interviews and focus groups.
Survey The survey was designed to accomplish two objectives. First, it was designed to generate an inventory of the assessments currently used by Colorado districts and charter schools.2 Second, the results of the survey were used to provide the starting point for the interviews held with district staff. Procedures used for these interviews are described below. One of the main objectives of this study is to identify the assessments being used in the state beyond the state-mandated assessments such as CSAP/TCAP, CELA and COACT and to understand how the results of all assessments, including the state-mandated assessments, are utilized. To do this, APA consulted with CLF and CDE to create a detailed survey which can be seen in Appendix A. The survey was tailored separately for district respondents and charter school respondents. In either case, the questions were broken into three main areas: (1) what are the common assessments used in the respondent’s district/charter beyond the state-mandated assessments, (2) how the results of all assessments are used, and (3) what types of assessments districts, schools or charter schools are creating on their own. In more detail, questions about each assessment used included:
The grade levels in which it is administered and how often it is given; If the assessment is given to any particular group of students or to all students; The content areas measured; Who is given the resulting data (teachers, principals, parents, etc.); What support is given to help teachers to use the results; and For what purposes the results are used.
Additional questions about the format and length of the assessment were also asked for any district or school created assessment. In an effort to make the survey user-friendly, APA created a list of commonly-used assessments. To produce this list, APA relied on a previous review of district Unified Improvement Plans conducted by the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment (Center for Assessment) and on discussions APA conducted with state agency assessment staff. Through this process, APA pre2
Due to low participation level, APA did not believe there was sufficient charter school data to consider the responses as representative of all charters in the state and thus we do not show the results for charter schools in this report.
2