The most critical data provided in the new reports are your results with respect to the statewide performance standards. Because of the method used to establish these scores, interpretation is as follows: A student who has met or exceeded the performance standards is likely to have been rated as having attained mastery of the content of the unit or program by a panel of teachers who have observed student classroom or laboratory performance. Likewise, a student who has failed to meet the performance standards is likely to have been rated as NOT having attained mastery.
The report formats provide for simple comparisons between groups (e.g. your students’ data versus state aggregate data). Working with percent correct OR percent meeting or exceeding performance standards on tests is straightforward. One approach is to simply subtract the comparison group data from your data at each end-of-course test level and examine the magnitude of differences.
Performance relative to performance standards indicates whether or not the student is likely to have met the mastery requirements for competency performance for the competencies within each unit of instruction and the program as a whole. Obviously, we can have greater confidence that the student has reached competency mastery if the student scored much higher than the benchmark. By the same token, we can have greater confidence that the student has not reached competency mastery if the student scored much lower than the performance standard. As with any assessment, if a student scores very near the performance standard, our level of confidence in his or her classification based on that score is reduced. In these cases we should be sure to take into account plenty of additional information when making judgments about competency mastery or non-mastery at the individual student level.
The Ohio Career-Technical Education Testing System provides a high-quality standardized criterion-referenced measure of knowledge linked to competency attainment. Significant resources have been devoted to test item development and validation, as well as the development of high-quality test forms demonstrating strong psychometric properties. The assessments are good measures of knowledge attainment at the unit and competency level of the CTE content standards. They allow relative comparisons against user norms (secondary and adult examinees for each test administration), provide information about technical skill attainment (performance standards), and serve as an effective and practical tool to assist in program improvement efforts and in documenting skill attainment.