- AASCD
- Ohio’s
Alternate Assessment for Students with the Most Significant Cognitive
Disabilities (AASCD), or alternate assessment, is the federally required
state assessment for students with the most significant cognitive
disabilities. It allows a very small population of students with the most
significant cognitive disabilities to demonstrate their knowledge and skills
on an appropriate academic assessment.
- Accessibility Features
- Tools and settings in the testing system that provide support for students, such as
features and tools that allow
students to change the screen color and text color or font size of an online
test.
- Accommodation
- Eligible students can receive adjustments to the testing conditions, test format or
test administration that provide equitable access during the test. Examples
of accommodations include extended time or language translations. Accommodations are available to
students through an
Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or 504 plan, or students who are English
learners.
- Accomplished
- One of five performance levels. A student performing at the accomplished level
has a consistent ability to demonstrate knowledge and skills that align with
Ohio's Learning Standards.
- Accomplished
(AASCD)
- One
of five performance levels. A student performing at the accomplished level
has a consistent ability to demonstrate knowledge and skills that align with
Ohio's Learning Standards - Extended.
- Advanced
- One of five performance levels. A student performing at the advanced level has an
exceeding ability to demonstrate knowledge and skills that align with Ohio's
Learning Standards.
- Advanced (AASCD)
- One of five performance levels. A student performing at the advanced level has an exceeding ability to demonstrate knowledge and skills that align with Ohio's Learning Standards - Extended.
- Benchmark test
- Available
within the Readiness Assessments,
Benchmark tests are full-length tests that mirror the content and test
characteristics of Ohio’s State Tests.
- Blueprint
- Test blueprints are a guide for test construction and provide an outline of the
content and skills to be measured on the test.
- Basic
- One of five performance levels. A student performing at the basic level has a
developing ability to demonstrate knowledge and skills that align with Ohio's
Learning Standards.
- Basic (AASCD)
- One of five performance levels. A student performing at the basic level has a
developing ability to demonstrate knowledge and skills that align with Ohio's
Learning Standards - Extended.
- Cognitive Demand (Science only)
- Cognitive demand represents the type of thinking, or the level/depth of complexity of
thought expected. Ohio's Cognitive Demands for Science include the following:
Designing Technological/Engineering Solutions Using Science Concepts,
Demonstrating Science Knowledge, Interpreting and Communicating Science
Concepts, and Recalling Accurate Science.
- Content Areas
- Content areas are also known as subjects (for example, English language arts, mathematics,
science, and social studies).
- Cut Scores
- A specific point on a test's score scale that distinguishes between two
performance levels. Scores at or above that point are interpreted to mean
something different from scores below that point. Cut scores can determine if
a student's test score is at the limited, basic, proficient, accomplished or
advanced performance level. Cut scores may also mark
specific points within a certain performance level, such as the Third Grade
Reading Guarantee Promption Score or the high school competency score.
- Depth-of-Knowledge (DOK)
- A system that classifies items based on the task's
complexity (in other words, the kind of thinking required by the task). DOK
levels do not reflect the difficulty of the task. There are 4 DOK levels:
DOK1 Recall and Reproduction, DOK2 Skills and Concepts, DOK3 Strategic
Thinking, and DOK4 Extended Thinking.
- End-of-Course (EOC) Assessment
- An end-of-course assessment measures mastery of content in a particular high school course. Ohio's State
Tests end-of-course assessments are administered in English Language Arts II, Algebra I, Geometry,
Integrated Mathematics I, Integrated Mathematics II, Biology, American History, and American Government.
- English Language Arts (ELA) Assessment
- The reading and writing skills assessed on the OSTs and AASCD.
- English Learner
- A student whose native or primary language is not English and who has difficulty speaking, reading,
writing, or understanding the English language.
- Fairness
- Also known as test fairness. Educators, parents, and community members make up committees to
evaluating test fairness. The committees review and evaluate test questions to make sure that test
questions are fair and unbiased for all groups of Ohio students. They also ensure that diverse cultures
are represented in assessments and materials.
- Formative Assessment
- A test teachers conduct throughout the year to identify where their students may need additional help or
practice and when they are ready to move ahead in their learning.
- Graduation Requirements
- Graduation requirements are a set of criteria that must be met for a student to graduate. The Ohio
graduation requirements are found at https://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Ohio-s-Graduation-Requirements
- Individual Student Report (ISR)
- Your child receives a student report for each test they complete. Your child's report provides general
information about the test and your child's results. The report may contain other elements, such as
their scale score, achievement level, previous performance, and scores in each area of the test. Your
child's reports may also show how your child's performance compares to that of other students who took
the same test in the same school, district, and state.
- Interim Assessment
- A low-stakes test that teachers can administer at many points throughout the school year, usually given
at the middle of a course, school year, or other period. It helps teachers identify gaps in
understanding and instruction.
- Items
- Test questions that appear on a test given to a student.
- Language Usage Survey
- A completed language usage survey is required for all students upon enrollment in Ohio schools. The
survey collects information about your child's language background and prior education. Information from
the survey tells school staff if they need to check your child’s proficiency in English. Answers to
these questions ensure your child receives the education services to succeed in school. The information
is not used to identify immigration status.
- Learning Standards
- Learning standards explain the knowledge and skills Ohio students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12
need to have. Ohio measures the performance of its schools based on how well students are progressing in
gaining the knowledge and skills within the learning standards. We do this partly by measuring student
performance on annual state tests based on the standards.
- Limited
- One of five performance levels. A student performing at the limited level has an emerging ability to
demonstrate knowledge and skills that align with Ohio's Learning Standards.
- Limited (AASCD)
- One of five performance levels. A student performing at the limited level has an emerging ability to
demonstrate knowledge and skills that align with Ohio's Learning Standards - Extended.
- Ohio's Learning Standards
- Ohio’s Learning Standards define what students should know and be able to do. Find information about
Ohio’s Learning Standards on the Ohio Department of Education website at education.ohio.gov
- Ohio's Leaning Standards - Extended (AASCD)
- Ohio’s Learning Standards – Extended were created to provide meaningful access to academic instruction
for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. Specific standards are extended across
three complexity levels, allowing teachers to address instruction at lower levels of depth and
complexity. The extended standards are aligned to the test questions on the AASCD.
- Options
- The response choices to an item from which students select an answer.
- Passage (Reading Passage)
- A selection of a written work, such as a non-fiction story, that students read in order to answer test
questions.
- Percentile Rank
- A student's rank relative to other students in the same grade or group.
- Performance Levels (AASCD)
- There are five performance levels of achievement in each subject area. A proficiency level corresponds
to a score range determined by a committee of Ohio educators and parents. Three of the performance
levels (Advanced, Accomplished and Proficient) are above the Proficient score of 500. Two performance
levels (Basic and Limited) are below the Proficient score. Each subject area has its own specific
descriptions of each of these performance levels, called Performance Level Descriptors. Performance
Level Descriptors for all content areas may be found on the reporting resources page of the AASCD
portal.
- Points Earned
- Also known as raw score. The number of points earned by your child in a Reporting Category.
- Points Possible
- The highest number of points that a student can earn in a Reporting Category.
- Proficient
- One of five performance levels. A student performing at the proficient level has a general ability to
demonstrate knowledge and skills that align with Ohio's Learning Standards.
- Proficient (AASCD)
- One of five performance levels. A student performing at the proficient level has a general ability to
demonstrate knowledge and skills that align with Ohio's Learning Standards - Extended.
- Raw score
- Raw scores are the points a child earned on a test. Raw scores cannot be compared across different test
forms, so they are converted to scaled scores for reporting purposes.
- Readiness Assessment
- Assessments designed to help schools and districts identify student progress and to receive usable
performance data. These assessments are optional and can be given in grades 3 through high school in
English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. The readiness assessments include the
benchmark and checkpoint tests.
- Reading Subscore
- A student's performance on individual reading standards on the grade 3 English language arts test.
- Reporting Category
- Each test has three to five reporting categories. Reporting categories are the major areas tested within
each subject. For example, areas for grade 3 mathematics are Multiplication and Division, Numbers and
Operations, Fractions, Geometry, and Modeling and Reasoning.
- Reporting Category Indicators
- The test results present groups of similar skills or learning standards measues on the test in reporting
categories. For example, a reporting category within integrated mathematics would be statistics. Student
performance on statistics or other areas within the reporting category is reported with an indicator.
These indicators are below proficient, near proficient and above proficient.
- Rubric
- A set of criteria explaining how an answer should be scored and what a child needs to do to earn full or
partial credit.
- Scale Score
- A numerical value that is on a common scale so that students' scores can be compared over multiple test
administrations of the same test. For example, scaled scores for students who took the grade 3 English
language arts state test this year may be compared with those of students who took it last year. Scaled
scores are not comparable across different subjects.
- Score Report
- A report that details your child's tests results.
- Standards
- Grade-level content or grade band content that is assessed for accountability purposes.
- Standard setting
- The process that determines what each performance level minimum and maximum score will be. Standard
setting is based on input from educators, community and business leaders, and the public, as well as the
state’s education leadership.
- Stem
- The question or prompt in a test item to which a student must respond.
- Stimulus
- A reading passage or multimedia resource in a test that students must review in order to respond to a set of associated items.
- Summative Test
- A test that measures student learning near the end of an instructional unit.
- Test Label
- Also known as test name.
- Test Reason
- A category assigned to a test opportunity and used to group tests for reporting purposes.
- Test Specifications
- Test specifications include descriptions of the assessment components and item types, assessment
blueprints, and item specifications, to help educators and the general public better understand the
design of Ohio's State Tests. These documents are used to guide the development of Ohio's State Tests.
- Test Window
- The season and year in which the test was given to students (for example, Fall 2022). Can also refer to
the specific range of dates during which a test may be given.
- Writing Condition Code
- This code when assigned explains why the student received an irregular score on the student's Writing
response. For example, condition code “TR” means a response was off topic. Condition code “NO” means a
response did not contain enough original text.
- Writing Rubrics
- A set of characteristics describing each possible score point for writing items across three dimensions:
purpose, focus, and organization; evidence and elaboration; and conventions. There are four writing
rubrics: grades 3-5 informative/explanatory rubric, grades 3-5 opinion rubric, grades 6-12
informative/explanatory rubric, and grades 6-12 argumentation rubric.
