Publications & Resources

Predictive Validity of an English Language Arts Performance Assessment

Oct 2007

Jia Wang, David Niemi and Haiwen Wang

The main goal of this report is to present evidence on the predictive validity of an English language arts (ELA) performance assessment (PA) administered in Grades 2–9 in a large urban school district. To account for the hierarchical structure of the data (students are nested within schools), we employed hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to distinguish individual and aggregated explanatory variables. Based on a sub-sample of 5,427 students, we found that students’ 2001 ELA PA scores were predictive of their probability of passing the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). We also found a significant correlation between student performances on the ELA performance assessment and other standardized tests. We believe that the ELA PA may be a dependable and useful indicator to identify at-risk students.

Wang, J., Niemi, D., & Wang, H. (2007). Predictive validity of an English language arts performance assessment (CRESST Report 729). Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST).