Glossary of Terms
Term Definition

Achievement Level

This is a category of performance based on students’ scale scores on the Interim Comprehensive Assessment (ICA) and summative assessment. The four achievement levels indicate progress toward meeting the expectation of content mastery and college and career readiness, and for the summative assessments are as follows:

  • Level 4: Advanced
  • Level 3: Proficient
  • Level 2: Developing
  • Level 1: Minimal

The four achievement levels for the ICAs are as follows:

  • Level 4: Exceeded Standard
  • Level 3: Met Standard
  • Level 2: Near Standard
  • Level 1: Below Standard

Adjusted-Form Summative Blueprint

This is a version of the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments that has been offered since the 2020–21 school year. The assessment tests the same content in English language arts/literacy (ELA) and mathematics as the previous years but with fewer questions on the computer adaptive segment of the assessment. There are no changes to the performance tasks. Results will help provide school and state leaders with key information to advance learning and support equitable outcomes for students. Because of fewer items included on the adjusted form, Smarter Balanced advises that claim data for individual students should not be reported.

Average Scale Score

This is information about the average performance of students in a defined group for the tested grade level and subject.

Claim

This is a summary statement about the knowledge and skills students are expected to demonstrate on the assessment related to a particular aspect of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

The full-form blueprint for the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment for ELA includes the following claims:

  • Reading
  • Writing
  • Listening/Speaking
  • Research

The full-form blueprint for the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment for Mathematics includes the following claims:

  • Concepts and Procedures
  • Problem Solving
  • Communicating/Reasoning
  • Model and Data analysis

Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

This is a set of standards created by a national council of state education leaders and adopted by most states in 2010. The standards describe what students should know and be able to do in ELA and mathematics in each grade level in kindergarten through grade twelve.

Confidence Interval

This is a calculated range around the student’s scale score on the Interim Assessment Block (IAB), equal to 1.5 times the standard error of measurement.

Correctness

This is the value arrived at by dividing the maximum score possible for an item by the student’s score.

Depth of knowledge (DOK)

This is a four-level framework developed to describe the conceptual complexity of curricular activities and assessment tasks (not to be confused with difficulty).

Difficulty (Item Difficulty)

The rating of an item as easy, moderate, or difficult is based on the proportion of students in a field test reference group who answered the item correctly.

Domain

This includes larger groups of related standards or content areas, such as Numbers and Operations—Fractions in the mathematics CCSS, disciplinary science domains in CAST, and language domains (Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing) in ELPAC.

Error Band

A student’s test score can vary if the assessment is taken several times. The error band is the level of uncertainty around a student’s score. The error band represents a score range that the student’s score would likely fall within if the student took the assessment multiple times before any additional instruction or learning occurs.

Exemplar

This is an example of a response that would earn full credit.

IAB

An Interim Assessment Block (IAB) measures a portion of the material taught at each grade level, such as fractions. A Focused IAB (FIAB) measures a more limited portion of material taught at a grade level, such as add and subtract with equivalent fractions.

ICA

Interim Comprehensive Assessments (ICAs) measure the same content as the summative assessments.

Key and Distractor Analysis

This is an item analysis that displays the percentage of students who selected the correct response option(s) (key) and incorrect response options (distractors).

Performance Standard

This is a reference point to know how students are performing in relationship to a standard. Meeting the standard means meeting the expectation of the content area. Performance standards are categorized by scale score. The scale score cuts associated with the achievement level are publicly available in this manual.

Reference Population

The reference population is a group of students. In this context, the reference population for an item consists of all the students who took the assessment the year the item was field-tested. Depending on when the item was field-tested, the reference population may be students who took the spring 2014 field test or a subsequent summative assessment that included embedded field tested items. These students’ responses to test items were used to classify each item into one of three difficulty categories—easy, moderate, or difficult.

Reporting Category

This is a category of performance. For Smarter Balanced and CAST interim assessments, the three reporting categories are Above Standard, Near Standard, and Below Standard. For Smarter Balanced and CAST summative assessments, the three reporting categories are Above Proficient, At or Near Proficient, and Below Proficient.

Rubric

This is a scoring guide for evaluating the quality of student responses, which describes the performance expectations for each test item.

Scale Score or Student Score

This is the score based on student results on an assessment.

Standard Error of Measurement

This acknowledges the difference between an estimated scale score and a student’s true scale score. The statistical uncertainty around a student’s true scale score, which may be affected by several factors, such as the sample of questions included on the assessment, a student’s mental or emotional state during testing, or the conditions under which the student took the assessment.

Standard Error of the Mean

The standard error is a statistical term that measures the accuracy with which a sample distribution represents a population by using standard deviation. In statistics, a sample mean deviates from the actual mean of a population—this deviation is the standard error of the mean.

Status

This is an indication of how the interim assessment was administered, including whether the assessment was a standardized or nonstandardized administration, and whether the assessment was completed or partially complete.

Target

This describes the expectations of what will be tested by the items and tasks within each claim—also known as an assessment target.

Writing Trait Scores

These are measures of the following writing proficiencies:

  • Organization and purpose
  • Evidence and elaboration
  • Conventions