How Kindergarten Entry Assessments Are Used in Public Schools and How They Correlate with Spring Assessments. Stated Briefly. REL 2017-183
Author: Shields, Katherine A.
Date: 2016-10-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: School Readiness,Kindergarten,Public Schools,Correlation,Scores,Reading Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Children,Longitudinal Studies,Surveys,Evaluation Methods,Aptitude Tests,Regression (Statistics),Institutional Characteristics

This &quot;Stated Briefly&quot; report is a companion piece that summarizes the results of another report of the same name. Child development research on the importance of early experiences for later life outcomes has underscored the need for effective early childhood education. With the aim of providing high-quality education, many kindergarten programs use assessments at the time of entry to understand what students know and can do. When such assessments are well-planned, appropriately designed, and implemented with fidelity, they can inform teaching and program improvement, and contribute to better student outcomes. As the number of states that require districts to administer kindergarten entry assessments grows, state and district administrators are interested in how their peers around the country use these assessments. Given this interest, state administrators participating in the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast &amp; Islands Early Childhood Education Research Alliance requested this study for information as they implemented plans for statewide assessments. Best practice guidelines for early childhood education assert the value of using data to guide instructional practice in general, yet there is limited empirical research linking the use of kindergarten entry assessment data with student learning outcomes. This study seeks to contribute to the limited literature on the relationship between use of kindergarten entry assessments and student early learning outcomes. Because the study draws on observational data, it cannot establish a causal link between use of kindergarten entry assessments and student outcomes. Instead, the analyses are intended to identify relationships that might be explored further with other datasets using a more rigorous experimental design. In addition, the study aims to provide important information to decision-makers in the field about the landscape of the use of kindergarten entry assessments, based on a nationally representative sample of U.S. public schools. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11, this study examined how many public schools used kindergarten entry assessments and for what purposes. Overall, 73 percent of public schools offering kindergarten classes reported using kindergarten entry assessments. Among those schools, the most common purposes were to individualize instruction (93 percent), identify needs for additional testing (65 percent), and determine class placement (41 percent). Schools' use of kindergarten entry assessments was not correlated with student assessment scores in early reading or math in spring of the kindergarten year. [For the full study, &quot;How Kindergarten Entry Assessments Are Used in Public Schools and How They Correlate with Spring Assessments. REL 2017-182,&quot; see ED569203.]