4 ways K-12 leaders can save educators time on assessments: insights from a new survey
A new survey of K-12 educators confirms widespread use of classroom assessments. In the survey, conducted by Pearson Assessments and K-12 Dive’s studioID, the vast majority of respondents report using a range of assessments to monitor learning progress.
The growing emphasis on assessments places greater demands on educators, however. The No. 1 challenge with assessments that educators cite in the survey? They take up too much time. That’s a big problem when K-12 workers are already forced to cope with burnout and staff shortages.
School and district leaders can help solve this problem by rethinking how assessments are delivered. Read on to learn four key steps to take now.
Make sure assessment data is accessible and easy to understand
Many educators face challenges accessing and interpreting assessment data. Only 55% of survey respondents strongly agree that their school or district’s classroom teachers can easily access results. And just 42% strongly agree that the data they receive is easy to understand.
One common problem is that schools use multiple assessment platforms. “Think about how much more difficult and time consuming it is to triangulate data when you need to pull data from different systems that don’t talk to one another,” says Amy Reilly, Vice President for Innovative Assessment Solutions at Pearson.
Making sense of data becomes harder when each platform has its own scoring scale. “As a teacher, I might get a score from a student’s benchmark assessment,” Reilly says. “But how do I translate that score if I’m using a separate platform for intervention?”
Use valid and reliable measures
Teachers also lack confidence in their assessment data. In the survey, fewer than two in five respondents strongly agree that the data lets them pinpoint student needs or personalize instruction.
Assessment tools should be counted on to produce valid (accurate) and reliable (consistent) results. That’s not always a given, however. School leaders must scrutinize assessment providers’ claims about validity and reliability.
Some classroom assessments have too few items to provide reliable learning evidence. Others fail to give the teacher enough context, such as whether questions are easy or difficult. Summative assessments can provide scores according to the state’s grade-level expectations. Those high-level scores may be valid, but they do little to guide targeted instruction.
The only way educators can ensure valid and reliable results at a granular level is by having a tool that uses principled assessment design practice and is built on data as well as a sound measurement model.
Test AI-powered tools as a way to save educators time — not a magic fix
Educators are bullish on artificial intelligence (AI) to help with assessments. Nearly three-quarters of survey respondents say they already use AI to improve assessment or are considering using it soon. Among those using AI, two-thirds say it has proved very effective at scoring open-ended questions and at offering teachers follow-up suggestions.
AI certainly holds promise to save teachers time with assessments. That’s especially true for analyzing results to derive insights about student performance.
Still, school leaders can’t look at AI as a panacea. Schools need stringent quality control if they use AI to analyze results and advise on next steps. AI won’t save educators time if it sends their instruction down the wrong path.
Reilly offers a warning about using AI to generate assessment questions. “Whether you’re using a generative AI tool to create assessment content yourself or using a vendor that has relied on AI,” she explains, “you need humans to review the content before it reaches students.”
Having valid, reliable data is crucial. To get there, assessments must go through a professional content development workflow that adheres to educational and psychological standards.
Provide a comprehensive, cohesive assessment system
The best way to save educators time creating, delivering and reviewing assessments is to provide them with a high-quality classroom assessment system.
A comprehensive and cohesive system gives classroom teachers all the tools they need. That includes formative assessments, progress-monitoring assessments, screeners and more. “Each assessment tool has an explicit purpose,” Reilly notes. It’s important that educators have the training to use each one.
Moreover, with a high-quality system, teachers have all their assessment data in one place. And they can count on valid, reliable data to target personalized instruction.
Taking shortcuts to improving assessments, Reilly says, simply “creates more noise for educators and takes up more time.”
Learn more about Pearson’s assessment solutions by visiting the Pearson Assessment for Learning Suite.