Assessment Vocabulary - A guide to understanding the language used in assessment tools such as ACRE/IFG

Accountability: process to ensure that schools meet their goals; how the assessment results are utilized to improve student performance, instruction, etc.

Assessment Blueprint: table of specifications; content areas to be assessed or evaluated.

Authentic Assessment: "portfolio" review of student work over time using a variety of measures, i.e., multiple choice, open-ended and essay questions, individual and group projects, etc.

AYP: adequate yearly progress - the performance indicators used in No Child Left Behind to determine school and district-wide progress toward proficiency goals for all students.

Content Standards: detailed descriptions about the quality of the academic knowledge students should attain relative to the curriculum; curriculum standards, or standards.

Criterion-referenced or Standards-based Tests: measure the content that students actually learned in relation to the curriculum and curriculum standards, not how well they did in relation to other students.

Formative Evaluation: improvement -oriented assessment that focuses on responding to needs, modifying organizational structures, and improving quality.

High-Stakes Test: one test used as the only determinant to measure success.

Norm-referenced Tests: these tests measure students against a state or national median or norm and rank students against each other along a bell curve with the norm in the middle.

Opportunity to Learn: extent to which students receive the type of instruction needed to respond correctly to assessment questions and statements.

Performance standards: descriptions of what students should be able to do to demonstrate mastery of academic content.

Portfolio: alternative form of assessment that evaluates student performance on the basis of work completed over time (i.e., through the course of a year of series of years).

Reliability: degree to which a test measures consistently; consistency of scores obtained by same test takers when re-tested; equivalent measures.

Validity: the degree to which a test measures what it is supposed to measure.

Value added assessments: measures gains in student learning over time rather than absolute levels of achievement; value may be calculated solely upon test scores and/or factor in socioeconomic characteristics.