Curriculum‐based assessment

Abstract

Curriculum-based assessment (CBA) measures have become a frequently used assessment tool of school psychologists to assess the academic performance functioning of students in the basic skill areas of reading, mathematics, spelling, and written expression. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the different approaches to CBA, with a particular focus on the defining measurement characteristics of each technique. Following this, an illustrative case example is presented that demonstrates how different CBAprocedures can be used for (a) making screening and problemidentification/certification decisions, (b) formulating instructional intervention plans, and (c) monitoring progress toward goal attainment and response to instruction.

Navigating the Measurement and Monitoring Maze

“…Some authors (e.g., Espin, Shin, & Busch, 2000) consider CBM to be different from CBA and others (e.g., Hintze et al, 2006) consider it to be a special application of CBA to long-term goals, for example, reading progresses over an entire year. The defining element of CBM is the focus on long-term goals rather than smaller units of instruction.…”

“…Depending on the purpose of implementation, progress monitoring can be completed for a wide variety of academic areas at the district, school, grade, classroom, or student level (Lembke & Stecker, 2007). Hintze, Christ, and Methe (2006) noted that although several variations of curriculum-based procedures exist in the literature, they all share the fundamental feature of being developed directly from instructional materials. Additionally, all the measures in the "curriculum-based" family use direct observation and recording of student performance to support instructional decisions (Deno, 1987).…”

“…The primary focus in analysis and interpretation of student performance is in terms of fluency (accurate and quick performance); therefore, CBM is most often used for outcomes such as reading decoding or arithmetic calculation, particularly in recall of arithmetic facts such as found in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Even though CBM focuses on long-term goals, it has been demonstrated to be sensitive to short-term effects of instruction (Hintze et al, 2006). For this reason, the National Research Council on Learning Disabilities (2007) suggested that CBM is the optimal method for progress monitoring in the development of the major skills.…”

Reliability and validity evidence for the EARLI literacy probes

“…CBA is a broad term that encompasses a variety of different measurement techniques, including speciÞc subskill mastery measurement (SMM) and GOM (Hintze, Christ, & Methe, 2006). SMM is used to assess a student's mastery of speciÞc subskills of the larger curriculum, whereas GOM is used to assess a student's proÞciency of global skills around which an entire curriculum is designed (Fuchs & Deno, 1991;Hintze et al, 2006). Although both SMMs and GOMs are used in school settings, the global nature of skill assessment conducted with GOM makes it a better tool for use in monitoring a child's long-term progress toward an educational goal.…”

Silent reading fluency using underlining: Evidence for an alternative method of assessment

“…Oral reading fluency is typically assessed by having individuals read aloud from a passage while their reading errors (i.e., miscues) and reading rate are recorded. Curriculum‐based measures (CBM) of reading (e.g., the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, Good, Kaminski, & Dill, 2002; AIMSweb, Shinn & Shinn, 2002) are widely used in the school setting (Hintze, Christ, & Methe, 2006; Stecker, Fuchs, & Fuchs, 2005). Children read aloud from each passage for 1 minute, and the number of words read correctly is recorded.…”