There are two ways to use the USNS assessments as measures of growth for individuals and groups of students: criterion-referenced growth and norm-referenced growth. Both methods to measure student growth on the USNS assessments are elaborated below.
Criterion-Referenced Growth
The 21 assessments of the Universal Screeners for Number Sense system become incrementally more difficult with each assessment. They are benchmarked to grade level expectations. Those expectations provide criteria against which to measure growth.
If you average the performance of each of the tasks of a series of assessments and graph those results, a student who keeps up with the expected levels of proficiency would have “flat” growth, if graphed as a trend line. And for students who are outpacing grade-level expectations for growth? Their performance trend line would go up and to the right. For students that are not keeping pace with expectations, their trend lines would go down.
Norm-Referenced Growth
Another way to consider growth is by looking at relative growth. Forefront’s USNS Global Cohort is a dataset of over 140,000 of results for peers across the United States. The Global Cohort provides a norm relative to which the growth of individuals or groups of students can be compared. Learn more about Forefront’s Global Cohorts and how to add them to your reports here.
It is important to note that the growth line of the global cohort is not flat. It drops from left to right. What this means is that, on average, students across the United States do not keep up with the expectations as measured by the assessments.
Additional Considerations
Both criterion-referenced and norm-referenced growth offer valuable perspectives when assessing student progress. Criterion-referenced growth provides a direct comparison to grade-level expectations, helping educators understand whether students are meeting, exceeding, or falling behind those benchmarks. Norm-referenced growth, on the other hand, offers a broader view, comparing individual or group performance against their peers. Both methods may be helpful, depending on your purposes. But by utilizing both methods, educators can gain a more comprehensive understanding of student growth, allowing for more informed instructional decisions.
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