The MAP® Growth™ theory of action describes key features of MAP Growth and its position in a comprehensive assessment system. The basic premise of the theory of action is that all students learn when MAP Growth is situated in a comprehensive assessment system and used for its intended purposes to yield information about student learning and enable…

Michigan's Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP) is a state-funded pre-K program that serves at risk four-year-old children across the state. Utilizing longitudinal data from 1,394 children in a mid-sized urban school district, we conducted regression analyses and piecewise linear growth models to examine the growth trajectory of GSRP children and…

Prior research on the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), a computer-adaptive test distributed by the Northwest Evaluation Association, has primarily focused on the Reading MAP for screening/benchmarking in elementary grades. The purpose of this study was to explore the functional form of growth and the extent to which student variability in…

Sources of longitudinal achievement data are increasing thanks partially to the expansion of available interim assessments. These tests are often used to monitor the progress of students, classrooms, and schools within and across school years. Yet, few statistical models equipped to approximate the distinctly seasonal patterns in the data exist,…

Important educational policy decisions, like whether to shorten or extend the school year, often require accurate estimates of how much students learn during the year. Yet, related research relies on a mostly untested assumption: that growth in achievement is linear throughout the entire school year. We examine this assumption using a dataset…