Degree Name

EdD (Doctor of Education)

Program

Educational Leadership

Date of Award

12-2011

Committee Chair or Co-Chairs

Virginia P. Foley

Committee Members

James H. Lampley, Eric S. Glover, Elizabeth Ralston

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine if a correlation existed between the Predictive Assessment Series (PAS) Test, marketed by Discovery Education, and the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) Achievement Test in reading, math, and science for grade 4, grade 6, and grade 8. The study included 4th-grade, 6th-grade, and 8th-grade students during the 2008-2009 school year who had taken the ThinkLink Predictive Assessment Series for reading, math, and science in February 2009 and had taken the TCAP reading, math, and science test in April 2009.

The approach of the study was quantitative in nature. Data were collected from one school system in East Tennessee. The school system had 5 elementary schools and 1 middle school. Data collection tools used in the study included results from the TCAP test using the paper and pencil format and a computer test, the ThinkLink PAS. Student scaled scores were used for determining the degree of correlation between the TCAP and PAS tests. The data were analyzed using the Statistical Program for the Social Sciences.

Based on the analysis and findings of this study, using the ThinkLink PAS test appears to have been successful in predicting how well students will perform on the state assessment. Overall, the correlations between the PAS and TCAP were consistent across grades, across gender within grade levels, and with Title I and Non-Title I students. The findings also show that it was possible to calculate a predicted TCAP score in reading, mathematics, and science. This was an important finding because the ability of the PAS assessment to predict TCAP scores could be another tool to provide educators the opportunity to target students who are potentially at risk of not meeting state benchmark proficiency levels. Based on the findings, there appears to be a strong relationship between the ThinkLink PAS benchmark assessment and the TCAP assessment in reading, math, and science for grade 4, grade 6, and grade 8. The relationships between PAS and TCAP tests in reading, math, and science were consistent across gender within grade levels. According to the results of the test of homogeneity of slopes, the relationships between PAS and TCAP tests in reading, math, and science were also consistent across Title I and Non-Title I schools. The test of homogeneity of slopes showed the slopes regression lines for the scores of Title I and Non-Title I students were the same (parallel) for grade 4, grade 6, and grade 8. Overall, the correlations between PAS and TCAP scores for Title I and Non-Title I students were moderately strong to very strong. The predictive validity of the PAS provides educators valuable time to reteach grade level skills to students who are at risk of scoring nonproficient on the TCAP.

Document Type

Dissertation - unrestricted

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

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