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ERIC Number: EJ885532
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005-Jun
Pages: 28
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0077-5762
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Statistical Misunderstandings of the Properties of School Scores and School Accountability
Rogosa, David
Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, v104 n2 p147-174 Jun 2005
This chapter provides an overview of statistical issues arising in work on educational assessment and school accountability, organized around some of the most consequential misunderstandings. The article proceeds via a series of nine vignettes describing misunderstandings of statistical uncertainty in educational assessment and school accountability. The flow of the exposition is from assessments of the statistical uncertainty in a group summary (school-score) to the consequences of uncertainty for properties of accountability decisions to attempts to adjust accountability criteria for the effects of uncertainty. The first two vignettes describe misunderstandings of the accuracy of scores. The next three vignettes depict the consequences of statistical uncertainty for properties of accountability systems (including wayward claims of a substantial "diversity penalty" and "small school advantage"). The next set of three vignettes concentrates on the often-cited "margin of error" and its misapplication to accountability, as in the NCLB confidence intervals. The final vignette describes the frequent misinterpretation of correlation coefficients to indicate the strength of the relation between student demographics and educational performance. (Contains 1 figure and 10 tables.)
Wiley-Blackwell. 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148. Tel: 800-835-6770; Tel: 781-388-8598; Fax: 781-388-8232; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: http://www.wiley.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/WileyCDA/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California
Identifiers - Laws, Policies, & Programs: No Child Left Behind Act 2001
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A