Stakeholder Communique PME 826 Module 4 By: Neil Westcott

Review of Our Large-Scale Assessment Use

My school has used the International Schools Assessment (ISA) for the past several years. The
ISA test is produced by the Australian Council for Educational Research Limited, or ACER. The
ISA is a test specifically produced for use with international schools of all types.

We have historically administered the ISA test to students from Grade 3 up to, and including,
Grade 12. The test itself has the following components: Mathematical literacy part 1 and 2,
Reading, and two separate writing tasks. The total time required to complete all of the
components is 4 hours.

My school has also used another standardized test called the Measure of Academic Progress
(MAP). We had a trial for Grade 2 and Grade 4 last year with one class per year level. Tests
were completed in reading, language usage and mathematics. The decision is still pending as to
whether we will use it this year at all.

Recommendation

There are several factors specific to my school and its situation that indicate that the best
strategic decision on using large-scale assessments would be to cancel the use of the ISAs and
use the MAP test for all grades from grade 2 onwards.

Reasons for using the MAP test are as follows:

It is given/taken on a computer which makes it more accessible.

The test is adaptive, so it may be used as both a formative and a summative assessment.
Our school admissions are continual, and the MAP test can be given individually at any time
of the school year.
MAP tests can be administered by someone unfamiliar with testing procedures. This is
important because staff turnover at my school is high. It helps ensure results are valid and
reliable.
Money and time spent on assessment can provide immediate value to student learning.
Reasons to cancel our ISA testing:

Children that leave the school are no longer in the system. The ISAs are not like the EQAO
or another provincial system, where tracking and longitudinal studies can give a clear picture
of how students are progressing over time even if they move schools.
Also, overall school scores do not mean much when admissions policies change year after
year. If we admit a lot of students who are new English Language Learners, then
performance numbers will decrease against the year before. Thus, the data is not reliable.
The two writing tasks covered in the ISA are very similar to writing tasks that teachers can
and do emulate. Also, students produce writing samples for an end of year summative piece
that is checked against a Grade 4 common core checklist. Its not the same but its similar.
We as a school do not go out of our way to publish or otherwise communicate the results of
the ISAs to students or parents. We also do not give clear or precise interviews or explain the
grades to parents and what they mean.
Middle and high school students in the International Baccalaureate program sit exams that
are external moderated, and the results of ISAs are relatively unimportant in comparison.
Stakeholder Communique PME 826 Module 4 By: Neil Westcott

References

International Schools Assessment. (2016, August 22) Retrieved from https://www.acer.edu.au/

isa

Measure student progress with MAP. (2016, August 22) Retrieved from https://www.nwea.org/
assessments/map/