A psychologist and senator are still unsure about the validity of the Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence test, administered to students this April and May.
Senator Aaron Osmond, R-Salt Lake City is concerned that the test won’t be as valid if students are opting out.
“What if in one district we have 30% of students opt out and in the next only 5%,” Osmond said. “How can we treat each district fairly on school grading and teacher assessments if more than one-third of their students are opting out? It isn’t really a valid and reliable instrument anymore.”
Some school districts have more students opting out than others, which causes the test results for the schools to be off.
“Are we really achieving what we want the test to achieve?” Osmond said. “The kids know that these tests don’t affect their grade and it doesn’t matter, so they don’t really take the test seriously.”
Psychologist Dr. Gary Thompson had a lot of concern about the validity of the test as well.
“I’m against inaccurate standardized testing,” Thompson said. “We are just taking the words of a private publishing company that says it measures academics, and there is no proof to that.”
He had asked American Institutes for research, the publisher of the test, for validity studies but Thompson said they never answered back with their validity tests
AIR created the test along with Utah committee members..
“Valid just means true, so when someone says a test is valid really what they are saying, are that the claims about the test is true and reasonably well supported,” said Jon Cohen, executive vice president of AIR.
He said the company goes through various lengths to create the questions as well as look at the data after the tests to determine validity.
“We look at the reliability of the test, that is how precise the estimates are for the test,” he said.
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