[NIFL-ASSESSMENT:337] Hello!/TABE Challenges

From: Marie Cora (mariecora@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Feb 10 2004 - 14:13:42 EST


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From: "Marie Cora" <mariecora@hotmail.com>
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Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:337] Hello!/TABE Challenges
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Dear Assessment List,

I am very pleased to introduce myself as your new List moderator.  I also 
presently coordinate the NIFL Special Collection in Assessment (have you 
visited there yet!?:  http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/assessment/).  My 
hope is that this Listserv can and will interact with the Collection so that 
these two invaluable resources can move forward in tandem.

A brief note about who I am:  I have an M.Ed. in TESL; I've worked in the 
U.S. and overseas; I've been in professional development since the late 
1980's; I've developed and maintained community-based partnership programs 
whose teachers were all volunteers; most recently I worked for SABES (System 
of Adult Basic Education Support), the professional development system for 
Massachusetts ABE, as their assessment specialist.

So now that that is out of the way!  I have been following a thread of 
conversation on the new aaace/nla list regarding the TABE.  A couple of 
posts note that it is not reliable; a couple of posts also note that they 
are approaching things differently - opting to use scale scores rather than 
GLEs for example.  Here is a post from me in reply:


Yes, the TABE can be quite problematic - the locator also can be unreliable 
which then of course affects the rest of the testing process. The Assessment 
Discussion List would be a great place to carry on - I have seen a handful 
of posts regarding the TABE here. I do know that a number of states are 
moving toward using scale scores because they are just more accurate. For 
some further readings on the TABE, you could go to the NIFL Special 
Assessment Collection and click on Teacher/Tutor Resources under Assessment 
Types. Under that same area is a link to Adventures in Assessment which also 
has a number of articles written about the TABE. Finally, the Massachusetts 
professional development website (SABES: http://www.sabes.org/assessment/) 
also has information about the TABE, and also discusses using scale scores.  
Off the top of my head, these are a few resources - I'm sure others out 
there have more to share.


So I would love to continue this conversation here - I know folks have a lot 
to say.  Are others having similar difficulties with the TABE?  How are you 
dealing with this?  Are others moving toward using Scale Scores?  Why?  How 
is that getting on?

Looking forward to your posts,
marie cora
NIFL Assessment List Moderator

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