22.11.2009
What does Stanford 10 assess?
Stanford 10 assesses the basic curricular objectives in the areas of reading, mathematics, language arts, science, and social science. At the elementary, middle, and junior high school levels, the concepts and skills assessed are those ordinarily taught during the second half of any given year and the first half of the following year. This midyear-to-midyear configuration provides for a more focused assessment of students tested in the spring of one grade and the fall of the next than could a single test level intended for use in both the fall and spring of the same school year. At the high school levels, where the TASK levels assess basic skills, a given level is appropriate for use in both the fall and spring of the same school year.
READING
The Stanford 10 reading subtests are structured to reflect current thinking about the ways in which good readers construct meaning with text and the ways in which students are taught to read. For several years, exemplary reading instructional programs have focused on three elements: teaching students developmentally appropriate skills and strategies that reflect the constructive and recursive nature of comprehension in both emergent and proficient readers; immersing students in high-quality reading materials that encourage students to reflect on the texts and their lives; and helping students make connections among all of the language arts, especially between reading and writing. Most states have revised their standards in reading/language arts to reflect this shift from a skills-based approach in the teaching of reading to a reader-centered approach.
This approach is reflected also in the assessments these states have created to measure their
students' reading achievement and in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In addition, the Standards Project for English Language Arts has emphasized these elements through Reading/Literature, Interconnections, and Real World Literacy strands.
The Stanford 10 reading subtests are designed to mirror as closely as possible the developmental, process-oriented nature of good reading instruction and the kinds of instructional activities and materials used in exemplary programs.
By the middle primary grades, the focus for reading instruction shifts to the development of the reading and thinking skills that enable students to comprehend and react to the ideas of writers, and the most important assessment is that of the ability to comprehend connected discourse. By the middle of kindergarten, simple sentence structures are generally familiar to students. The Sentence Reading subtest, included at the SESAT 2 and Primary 1 levels, assesses students' ability to comprehend single, simple sentences and two related sentences. In the Reading Comprehension subtest at the Primary 1 level, three different formats, each involving increasingly larger pieces of text, are used. In the first format, students read a conceptually appropriate two-sentence riddle and identify which of three pictures the riddle describes. The second format, a short modified cloze passage, requires students to choose one of three words to complete each sentence. The third format, a reading passage followed by questions, is introduced in simple form.
Starting from the Primary 2 test level, Reading Comprehension is assessed through reading selections accompanied by questions about the selection. Research shows that good readers select and adjust strategies according to the purpose for reading and the type of text being read. The Reading Comprehension subtest assesses students within the framework of three types of material:
1. Literary: Material read for enjoyment or literary merit, including folk tales, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, humor, and poetry.
2. Informational: Level-appropriate expository material with content from natural, physical, and social science, as well as other nonfiction general information materials.
3. Functional: Material encountered in everyday life, both inside and outside of school, including directions, forms, labels, personal notes, and advertisements.
All passages on Stanford 10 are written expressly for the Reading Comprehension subtest. Reflecting literature-based curricula in most classrooms today, the literary and informational passages include original short stories and articles written by published children's authors. These passages reflect a variety of topics and diverse cultural themes that will appeal to students of varying backgrounds, experiential levels, and interests. Some narrative and informational passages were written by award-winning authors of young people's literature. Other pieces were written by seasoned writers who regularly contribute to young people's popular magazines and newspapers. Authors' names are included to enhance the students' awareness of the author of the material they have just read. The fact that the test closely resembles the kinds of materials that students read in school and in everyday life adds to the authenticity of the test and heightens student motivation and format familiarity.
Within each type of text, test items are constructed to measure the students' skills in four modes of comprehension: Initial Understanding, Interpretation, and Critical Analysis and Reading Strategies. Initial Understanding items are designed to measure students' ability to understand directly stated details or relationships. Items measuring Interpretation assess comprehension of implicit information and relationships and the ability to discern ideas that go beyond the text. Critical Analysis and Reading Strategies items measure students' ability to analyze and evaluate explicit and implicit information and relationships. These items also assess the ability to determine or describe reading strategies used by the writer or appropriate reader strategies to use in given situations.
Before students can read connected discourse with fluency and good comprehension, they need to develop a variety of pre-reading skills. In pre-reading and beginning reading instruction, students are taught skills that will help them decode words they do not recognize on sight, thus allowing them to continue building their reading vocabularies. The Sounds and Letters and Word Study Skills subtests assess students' ability to use phonetic and structural analysis skills at the levels where these skills are emphasized.
The Sounds and Letters subtest, included at SESAT 1 and SESAT 2, centers on auditory perception and visual discrimination/symbol perception. These abilities are the building blocks for using phoneme-grapheme (sound-symbol) correspondence to decode and encode words.
The Word Study Skills subtest, included at the Primary 1, Primary 2, Primary 3, and Intermediate 1 test levels, consists of two parts — structural analysis and phonetic analysis. The structural analysis portion assesses students' recognition and use of compound words, words with inflectional endings, words with affixes, and contractions. The phonetic analysis portion measures students' ability to recognize relationships between sounds and letters within words typically encountered at the grade levels being tested. Consonant and vowel sounds assessed are those generally emphasized at the target grade level.
As students begin formal reading instruction, they are expected to apply their newly learned decoding skills to the words already existing in their listening/speaking vocabularies. The focus of reading instruction shifts from decoding words with known meanings to learning new concepts along with the words used to represent them.
The Reading Vocabulary subtest, available from Primary 2 through TASK 3, focuses on appropriate reading vocabulary development at each grade level. The synonyms portion of the subtest requires students to choose the word that means the same as a given stimulus word. The words tested include those generally encountered in everyday life and in the various subject areas taught in school. The difficulty of the tested words is controlled to be appropriate for the grade level of the students taking a given test level.
When students encounter a word with more than one meaning, they need to be able to determine which meaning is appropriate in that context. The multiple-meaning words portion of the Reading Vocabulary subtest asks students to differentiate among the multiple meanings of a word. The tested word appears in a stimulus sentence and in each of four option sentences. Students must determine in which sentence the tested word has the same meaning as in the stimulus sentence.
Students are able to extend their reading vocabularies significantly if they are able to use context clues in order to assign meaning to an unknown word. The context clues portion of the Reading Vocabulary subtest uses words embedded in a stimulus sentence that is designed to clue the meaning of the word. To ensure that use of context clues is being assessed, tested words are well above the target grade for each level.
MATHEMATICS
Over the last two decades, the face of mathematics instruction has undergone vast and significant change. The proliferation of curriculum and assessment standards in mathematics at the national and state levels reflects a heightened awareness of the pivotal role that mathematical competence plays not only in enriching individual lives, but in shaping the future of our society and culture as well. Never before in our history has it been considered more critical for all students to develop mathematical power. And never before has widespread awareness of this need and goal been higher.
The Stanford 10 mathematics subtests assess students' mathematical power, a term defined by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) as "an individual's abilities to explore, conjecture, and reason logically, as well as the ability to use a variety of mathematical methods effectively to solve non-routine problems." In their Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (1989), NCTM elaborated by saying that this "is based on the recognition of mathematics as more than a collection of concepts and skills to be mastered; it includes methods of investigating and reasoning, means of communication, and notions of context." In its revision of the 1989 standards, Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000), NCTM establishes the importance of assessment in making and measuring progress toward these goals. "The instructional decisions made by teachers ... are based on inferences about what students know and what they need to learn. Assessment is a primary source of the evidence on which these inferences are based. ..." The Stanford 10 mathematics subtests are an essential part of systematic assessment that measures the concepts and skills of mathematics within the context of realistic and engaging problems. The emphasis is on problems that require students to use logical reasoning, employ communication skills to recognize alternative representations of data, and implement non-routine problem-solving strategies. The mathematical content incorporated in these problems has also been refined to reflect the emphasis recommended in standards articulated by the NCTM and by various state frameworks.
The Stanford 10 mathematics subtests assess the entire breadth of mathematical content recommended by NCTM, including number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, data analysis, and probability. At the SESAT 1 and SESAT 2 levels and the TASK levels, mathematics is assessed in a single subtest. In its Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, NCTM recognizes the necessity for developing computational fluency in students through mathematics education. "Developing fluency requires a balance and connection between conceptual understanding and computational fluency." In order to provide educators with detailed information about their students' achievement, the Stanford 10 includes two subtests at Primary 1 through Advanced 2: Mathematics Problem Solving and Mathematics Procedures.
Several features characteristic of the Stanford 10 support vital goals for school mathematics. Standard and metric rulers are included for use with measurement items. Calculator use is an option in the Problem Solving subtest beginning at the Intermediate 1 level. Calculator use on the appropriate subtest is a local decision and should reflect student access to calculators in the everyday instructional environment. At the TASK levels, where calculators are also an option, the Mathematics subtest assesses essential elements of a true high school curriculum. Although every item can be solved by reasoning and an understanding of general mathematics, topics from algebra, geometry, trigonometry, statistics, and discrete mathematics are included. As at all levels of Stanford 10, the emphasis at the TASK levels is on assessing skills and concepts within the contexts that require those skills and concepts outside of the classroom.
The mathematics portion of the Stanford 10 is an assessment of student proficiency in a modern mathematics curriculum that encourages students to value mathematics and supports sound instructional practice in the mathematics classroom.
LANGUAGE
From Primary 1 through TASK 3, the Stanford 10 Traditional Language subtest measures students' achievement in applying the principles that form effective writing. From word- and sentence-level skills to whole paper features, the subtest engages students in real-life activities that demand more than the mere recall of information.
To make the assessment manageable for students, the Language subtest is divided into three sections. The first section contains items measuring proficiency in language mechanics: capitalization, punctuation, and usage. In this section there may be errors from several categories of language mechanics. For example, an item testing students' ability to recognize and correct a mistake in subject-verb agreement may have an option that includes another subject-verb problem and a punctuation error. The act of answering such an item resembles an actual editing task, in which writers have to make complex decisions about correctness every step of the way.
Language expression is tested in the second and third parts of the Language subtest. Students are first assessed on their writing strategies and understanding of sentence structure. At the lower grade levels, items measuring such objectives as run-ons, fragments, and awkward construction are included. As test levels progress, items measuring these objectives become more difficult, and items assessing achievement in the subtleties of sentence formation begin to appear. For example, mistakes such as redundancy and misplaced modifiers make writing "flat" and difficult to understand. Items testing these objectives force students to think carefully about structural errors that often impede fluency and impair meaning.
The third section of the Language subtest contains language expression items that go beyond sentence-level skills and include objectives typically assessed only in the direct assessment of writing. These items, testing such crucial aspects of understanding as the ability to recognize extraneous information, combine simplistic sentences, or use descriptive language, are linked to short, grade-appropriate paragraphs written especially for this assessment. Students usually perform better when they are "tuned in" to the assessment, and the careful selection of paragraph topics is one important way to keep their attention. Different modes of writing (e.g., narrative and persuasive) are represented in the paragraphs, thus reinforcing the sound classroom practice of exposing students to as many different models of writing as possible. In addition, even though the paragraphs are flawed in some way (because of missing information, faulty subordination, inadequate transition, and so on), they are meant to model good writing as best they can. That is sentences are varied in structure and length, the writing is fluent, and the tone is appropriate. Word choice is precise, and, when appropriate, vivid. Finally, the paragraphs are brief enough to prevent students from becoming confused or overly fatigued. These compact miniatures contain fewer than 100 words, even at the upper levels.
COMPREHENSIVE LANGUAGE FORM D
The Comprehensive Language Form D subtest reflects a number of current instructional emphases. First, it assesses language arts objectives in the context of real-life, purposeful settings that are relevant to students. Second, it is based on and reflects the developmental nature of the writing process itself. Third, it evaluates linguistic achievement in a holistic fashion.
The Language Form D subtest consists, at the developmentally appropriate levels, of four major language arts objectives: listening, prewriting, composing, and editing.
Listening is the first mode of Language to develop, and it plays an important role both in the development of the other modes of language and as a foundation for learning in general. By considering a student's performance in listening together with performance in the other language arts, a teacher can obtain a clear picture of where the student stands along the continuum of language development. Listening is assessed only at the Primary 1 and Primary 2 levels.
Prewriting, composing, and editing are the primary components of the writing process, and the Language Form D subtest evaluates these skills in a multiple-choice format that emulates the direct assessment of writing. Students are given a series of brief scenarios, each containing a specific writing task that a writer must complete for a given audience. These scenarios are divided into sections that reflect the prewriting, composing, and editing stages of writing. After each section of a scenario, students answer prewriting, composing, or editing questions that mirror these crucial stages of writing.
SPELLING
As students learn about written language, they develop a variety of strategies for spelling the words they need to communicate their ideas in writing. With formal spelling instruction, students progress from relying on word memory and sound-spellings to applying their knowledge of both the phonetic relationships and the structural properties of words. The Stanford 10 Spelling subtest assesses objectives based upon the phonetic and structural principles taught at each of the grade levels. At the Primary levels, the subtest also includes sight words — words that must be memorized because they do not follow any general phonetic principles that students have learned. At the Intermediate, Advanced, and TASK levels, sight words are replaced by homophones.
The format for the Primary 1 Spelling subtest is dictated: students listen to a word and a sentence containing the word. They must choose from among three options, with the two wrong answers reflecting the most plausible and often-used misspellings of the same word, as identified in a major study of children's actual writing samples. Since many first graders do not yet read fluently, the use of dictated words in the context of sentences has proven to be an effective format for assessing spelling ability. At the Primary 2 through TASK 3 levels, the spelling words are presented in context, a format that provides students with a more realistic task than when the words are presented in isolation. Each spelling item consists of one sentence with three underlined words and, from Primary 3 up, a "No Mistake" option. Students must either recognize the misspelled word or recognize that all of the words are spelled correctly. Misspellings used reflect students' most common spelling errors, as identified in a major study of students' actual writing samples. With increased use of spelling checkers, it has become increasingly important for students to recognize the words they are trying to spell.
LISTENING
In many schools across the country, educators are formally recognizing the role of listening in literacy development, in learning in general, and in everyday life situations. Although listening is not taught as a separate subject in most schools, it is the mode of language by which vocabulary acquisition occurs, as well as the means by which early learning in all subject areas depends. In a world that requires astute and rapid processing of an increasing volume of information, listening is also important in day-to-day life situations.
In recognition of the importance of listening in instruction and in everyday life, Stanford 10 assesses both listening vocabulary and comprehension from kindergarten through grade 9.
The typical child enters school with a listening vocabulary of about 6,000 words. This vocabulary "bank," coupled with meaningful experiences and comprehension skills and strategies, helps provide the basis for reading and all other instruction. Knowledge of word meanings is measured in the vocabulary portion of the Listening subtest. Tested vocabulary represents a carefully chosen sample of the types of words that students at each grade are likely to encounter in everyday life and in school.
Stanford 10 assesses listening comprehension with dictated selections and questions. Three types of selections reflect the kinds of real-life listening material that students are confronted with both in school and outside of school. Literary selections are stories and poems. Informational selections represent the kinds of instructional material students might hear in science, history, current events, geography, health, government, and other areas. Functional messages include step-by-step directions, advertisements, and announcements. There is a greater emphasis on narrative selections at the lowest levels, since young children are more familiar with stories. Beginning at the Primary 3 level, a greater proportion of informational and functional pieces are used in order to mirror the types of listening situations that these students are exposed to. In order to reflect typical listening behaviors, in which good listeners often take notes in order to remember what is being said, students are allowed to take notes as the listening selections are being read to them. They are then encouraged to refer to these notes as they answer the questions.
Effective listening, like reading, involves "getting involved," constructing meaning with the information that is presented. Stanford 10 measures how well students form an initial understanding, as well as interpret and analyze material critically. Questions measuring Initial Understanding ask students to identify important characters, details, events, sequences, and explicit ideas and relationships. Interpretation questions require students to make inferences and draw conclusions, make predictions, understand cause-and-effect relationships, and determine the main idea or key concepts of what they have heard. Analysis questions ask students to consider the selection critically in order to discern between reality and make- believe or fact and opinion, evaluate the speaker's purpose and viewpoint, form a hypothesis based on what was heard, and at upper levels, evaluate the sufficiency of support for a speaker's argument. There are also Reading Strategies questions that ask students to analyze the likely source of a message, determine the appropriate strategy to use in a given situation, and at the upper levels, analyze the selection's structure and the speaker's rhetorical devices.
SCIENCE
The Stanford 10 Science subtest is designed to assess understanding in the domains of the life, physical, and earth sciences. The Science subtest de-emphasizes specific content vocabulary and emphasizes the processes and concepts of science. The National Science Education Standards and many state curriculum guides were employed to determine the importance of conceptual information. These criteria include the ideas that the concept should have strong predictive power, be applicable in many situations, guide observation, encourage questioning, and represent organizing principles.
The concepts tested at the lower levels are developed and expanded at the upper levels where Science is tested as a single subtest, following once again the patterns established in the National Science Education Standards and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy. Thus, each test level is supported by the level below and leads to the level above. This is consistent with a developmentally appropriate curriculum supported by the National Science Education Standards in the prototype Standards.
Each test item is carefully crafted to support high standards of student achievement in processing science information. Test items allow students to use reasoning skills to reach answers rather than recall memorized, detailed information. Students may be asked to apply an understanding of the concept directly to a situation, but, more often, they are asked to use these concepts to interpret data, draw conclusions, and predict events. Students are asked to use reasoning skills throughout the subtest. These skills include estimating, making simple calculations, seeking patterns, making observations, recognizing cause and effect, reading standard instruments, and drawing conclusions. Students are challenged throughout the Stanford 10 Science subtest to apply foundation concepts and skills as they think through questions.
ENVIRONMENT
Very young students are not generally exposed to formal science instruction. However, they are exposed to the life, physical, and earth sciences through their experiences with the natural and social world. Thus, at the lower test levels, the Environment subtest combines the natural sciences and social sciences to reflect the type of material most children will have actively experienced or been exposed to through various common media. The science portion of this subtest provides an overview of children's understanding of common experiences in the natural environment. Questions reflect understanding of general concepts more than the specific details of science. The general concepts assessed at these lower grade levels form the basis for understanding more sophisticated concepts at higher grade levels. As much as possible, the concepts are developmentally appropriate, conforming to the concepts outlined in the National Science Education Standards and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy.
SOCIAL SCIENCE
The Stanford 10 Social Science subtest is designed to support the overarching purpose of social science education as stated by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). This purpose is to "help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world." Stanford 10 Social Science is designed to assess elements critical in the development of building civic competence among our nation's students.
The NCSS Standards and discipline-specific content standards are reflected in the Social Science subtest. The assessment items, at all levels, represent contemporary thinking in the content areas of history, geography, civics and government, and economics.
In 1996, The National Standards for History stated, "...knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence." Our nation's multicultural background makes it imperative that students develop a common understanding of our democratic heritage. Therefore, history as assessed in Stanford 10 is focused on three main areas: the history of the United States, the history of Western civilization, and the history of non-Western peoples and societies sharing our interdependent world.
Geography, another key discipline, is tested according to both the five themes (location, place, human-environment interaction, movement, and region) as well as the Geography for Life: National Geography Standards. These are divided into six essential elements: The World in Spatial Terms, Places and Regions, Physical Systems, Human Systems, Environment and Society, and The Uses of Geography. Stanford 10 reflects the growing importance of both physical and human geography in today's schools.
The Civics and Government component of Stanford 10 assesses the basic understanding of the United States system of government, with an emphasis on the rights and responsibilities that accompany citizenship and the role of the citizen as a member of a community, a nation, and the world. At the upper levels comparative government systems are also assessed. Items reflect the standards as outlined in the National Standards for Civics and Government and Expectations for Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Studies.
The Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics states that economic understanding is important so that students "will be better-informed workers, consumers and producers, savers and investors, and most important, citizens." These standards provide the foundation for Stanford 10 economic item development. Both macroeconomic and microeconomic concepts are assessed.
The Stanford 10 Social Science subtest assesses a wide range of social science knowledge and intellectual skills. Some of these include: identifying concepts, thinking chronologically, analyzing data, evaluating evidence, understanding multiple perspectives, and interpreting information. The Stanford 10 Social Science subtest is designed to support and reflect the most current curriculum and instruction in the social sciences.
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