Text Support Team

Reading Comprehension Assessment Norming Rationale

Laura Nowak, Chris Zbasnik, Jordan Wankoff, & Osiris Alday

ACTPLAN/EXPLORE

Normed
Normgroupisbasedfromapiloted2005testgiventodifferentstatespublicandprivate
schools(p.12)
Newnormgroupdatatakeninfall2010forPlantest(960,029students)andExploretest
(17,168students)(p.22)
Studentstestscoreswereweightedfromasamplesetofscorestoestablishthe
norminggroupscoresandeliminatebiasquestions(p.23)
Theweightedcategories:gender,race,private/publicschool,geographiclocation,and
sizeofgrade(p.24)

Reliable
Thethreetests:Plan,Explore,andACTarecomparedbyscalingthescoresachieved
bystudents(p.20)
Scalescoresweresetusingtheweightedcategorieson(p.25)thentheywerescaled
usingaloglinearmethod
Percentatorbelowwereestablishedfromthescalescores(p.26),usedtodetermine
percentilesforscoringlater
ACTcompanysetsexpectedACTscoresfromPlanandExplorescores(p.3233)
Inmeasuringreliability,includingerrorandeffectiveweights,theACTExplore

TechnicalManualexplainsthatthetheaveragestandarderrorofmeasurement(SEM)is
theaverageoftheconditionalstandarderrorsofmeasurement.Ifthedistributionof
measurementerrorisapproximatedbyanormaldistribution,abouttwothirdsofthe
examineescanbeexpectedtobemismeasuredbylessthan1standarderrorof
measurement(p.36,39)

Reliabilityrawscoresarecomparedusingstandarderrorofmeasurementformula:

SEMcStandardErrorofMeasurementforcompositescoresRELcReliabilityscore
forcompositeSStandarddeviationforcomposite

Reliabilitymeasuresusingtheformulaaretabulatedonp.34&37

Valid
ContentareatextspecialistswroteCollegeReadinessStandardsbasedontheskillset
fromthetestingmaterial(p.14)
CorrelationsweremeasuredbetweensubsectionsofthePlanandExploreteststoseeif
questionswerevalid(p.41)
CorrelationsweremeasuredbetweenPlanandExploreteststomeasurevalidity(p.42)
Correlationsweremadebetweenclassestakenbystudentsin9thand10thgradeand
PlanandExplorescores(p.45)
CorrelationsweremadebetweenstudentsGPAandPlanandExplorescores(p.46)

TechnicalManualPLAN20132014