The Impact of External Events on Low-Stakes Assessment: A Cautionary Tale

Kelsey Nason & Christine E. DeMars   |    Volume 18 Issue 2  |   

Universities administer assessments for accountability and program improvement. Student effort is low during assessments due to minimal, perceived consequences. The effects of low effort are compounded by assessment context. This project investigates validity concerns caused by minimal effort and exacerbated by contextual factors. Systematic disruptions that affect effort impact the validity of scores. Effort and scores from four administrations of James Madison University’s (JMU) remote Assessment Day were examined; these semesters presented unique, changing contexts. Special attention was paid to Spring 2022 which had numerous contextual factors (e.g., online assessment, campus suicides) affecting students and their assessment environments. Time spent testing varied across semesters mirroring the varied scores. With one exception, our results showed lower effort in Spring (posttest) than Fall (pretest) assessments which led to estimates of little or no gain between pretest and posttest. Implications and limitations are discussed.

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