Author Karl F. Kuhn explores serious accuracy and precision problems with the MAP test and RIT scores which render the MAP test unreliable for making decisions about students. The self-adjusting design of the test actually guarantees low precision. This article provides graphs with mathematical terminology supporting the analysis. Careful study of his observations may help us understand the limitations of MAP testing.
The standards movement started with good intentions. Business leaders noticed that students were coming out of high schools with a lot of knowledge but no real skills. The graduates could not take on major projects, they could not balance work between independent initiative and cooperation. College professors noticed that students were dependent learners. They failed to ask critical questions. They limited their learning to the course outline, and only learned what was required for the test. Citizens groups noticed that recent graduates could not interpret news or interpret numbers. People could not estimate numbers related to their own accounts, or understand common numerical information in the news. So various groups set out to create standards.
The standards were intended to improve real performance in real life circumstances. People needed to learn to work cooperatively, be more self-aware, integrate complex information, solve non-routine problems, and evaluate the quality of diverse information. These were the intentions of the standards movement.
However, in a short period of time the standards movement became political.
Go to this link for more:
http://conceptualmath.org/misc/testsupport.htm
Go to this link for part 1 of this series:
http://conceptualmath.org/misc/testshort.htm
Go to this link for part 2 of this series:
http://conceptualmath.org/misc/MAPtest.htm
This is an incredibly valuable article, if somewhat deep for the non-math oriented reader. Well worth plowing through to the conclusion.
For further corroboration of Kuhn’s thesis that the MAP is not an appropriate test, see Dr. James Popham’s discussion presented last summer at a conference in Wyoming:
http://edu.wyoming.gov/video/2011/08/23/dr-jim-popham-discusses-paws-and-assessment-literacy
The discussion of MAP begins at 15:55 of the presentation. The general conclusion is that THEIR IS NO EVIDENCE SUPPORTING THE USE OF MAP AS AN INSTRUCTIONAL IMPROVEMENT TEST!
Popham is one of the top assessment experts in the WORLD. But of course our current Board (led by Mr. Fielding, who has been on the board of the company producing the MAP test, wink, wink) knows more about assessment than this professor emeritus from UCLA who chaired the national commission on assessment.