Assessment Component of the MMSR

Assessment practices in early childhood education programs are characterized by documenting, recording, and interpreting children’s performance (Johnson & Rogers, 2001). Young children’s interaction with materials, peers and adults are particularly appropriate in which to observe and document children’s skills and behaviors (Roskos & Neuman, 1993). Classroom teachers become the primary agents for evaluating and interpreting children’s skills, behaviors, and abilities (Clay, 1998).

However, to overcome the concerns of subjectivity inherent in teachers’ evaluations (Hogi & Coladarci, 1989), any valid and reliable assessment format must include the following:

		a systematic format for evaluating and interpreting children’s learning,
		alignment with the curriculum taught in the classroom,
		concrete safeguards against teachers’ biases in influencing student outcomes.

As a result of these criteria, the MMSR includes an assessment format which emphasizes specific guidelines of skill-based performance indicators, establishes the distinction between on-going documentation of learning and summative evaluation, and uses performance indicators, based on national standards, that align with the readiness expectations which are defined by the MMSR.

The Work Sampling System (WSS)®, as the selected assessment format, helps teachers document and assess children’s skills, knowledge, behavior, and academic accomplishments across a variety of curricular areas. Through observation, recording, and evaluating everyday classroom experiences and activities, teachers gain a better understanding of what their students know, are able to do, and what they still need to work on. Thus, the WSS® is not a conventional readiness test. It is not used to place students in particular programs. At the contrary, it is designed to support the learning of every student toward consistent expectations for students’ learning across seven curricular domains. These domains are:

1. Social and personal development;
2. Language and literacy;
3. Mathematical thinking;
4. Scientific thinking;
5. Social studies;
6. The arts;
7. Physical development.

The WSS® is based on national and state standards. These standards are reflected in the WSS® Developmental Checklists, which are used by teachers to document and rate each child’s growth and progress during the school year. The teachers work with specific guidelines that tell them what to look for when they assess their students. Typically, teachers evaluate their students’ skills and abilities two or three times a year. Teachers share the assessment information with parents of their students and report it to the teachers of the following grade as part of the school’s grade-to-grade articulation. The WSS® is also used in most publicly funded prekindergarten programs. Most Head Start programs and many childcare programs are initiating staff development activities related to the MMSR and the use of the WSS.

In order to be aligned with the locally devised curricula, the MMSR includes an instructional planning guide. This guide allows for the alignment of the MMSR readiness outcomes and indicators, the WSS® performance indicators, and the local curriculum, or a commercial early childhood curriculum.

The MMSR establishes safeguards against teacher biases when WSS® information is aggregated for external use . The threats to reliability of teacher generated student evaluation can be (1) sampling error; (2) lack of internal consistency; (3) subjectivity of the scoring process. In terms of using kindergarten teacher ratings for group performances of children, the sampling problems are eliminated through census administration of the WSS. The internal consistency is measured statistically to determine whether the teacher ratings are explained by the actual performance of the students or by other factors. And, controlling the subjectivity of ratings is a function of a high degree of training and well-defined scoring criteria (Shavelson, Baxter & Pine, 1992). In addition, the school readiness information has no accountability consequences for teachers or the schools.

¹ The Work Sampling System (WSS)® has been selected statewide since it meets these criteria. The Early Childhood Observation Record (ECOR) in Montgomery County and the Teacher Observation of Learning (TOOL) in Anne Arundel County, also meet these criteria and are compatible with the MMSR. The WSS® is a registered trademark of Pearson Learning
² For the state's school readiness information in school year 2001-02, the Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient for internal consistency on the 30 WSS® indicators was .9681, and the split-half reliability coefficient was .9687. The reliability data for school year 2002-03 was similar (coefficients for Cronbach alpha = .9679 and Guttman split-half = .9265)
³ Concerns about the school readiness information reflecting on the performance of the school are not warranted since the children are just entering kindergarten, and the teacher ratings cannot be used for the performance of the teachers since they only report on the skill levels of children as they start out the school year in their classrooms.