A couple of weeks ago the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development (MAESD) released a memo and accompanying reports announcing they will not use the Essential Skills for Employment and Education (ESEE) test to measure the skill gains of students who participate in LBS programs. ESEE was piloted in LBS programs in what was … Continue reading ESEE come, not so ESEE go… What went wrong with the Learner Gains Research Project and what can we learn from it?
Category: Reporting results of testing
Now we have something real to talk about: From 50% to 15% of the population with literacy challenges
There’s a lot happening in Ontario’s Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) program these days. On April 12 a long-awaited and very critical evaluation report was released. Then, on April 28 an influx of new funding was announced in the Ontario Budget. This year, LBS will receive an additional 20 million dollars, a 20% increase, with … Continue reading Now we have something real to talk about: From 50% to 15% of the population with literacy challenges
Using an international literacy testing spin-off to measure program performance in Ontario’s colleges and universities
The effort to use an adult literacy assessment spin-off in an education system has moved into the big leagues here in Ontario. The Higher Education Quality Council (HEQCO), an agency funded by the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development (which also funds LBS), just announced the start of an ambitious testing project using Education … Continue reading Using an international literacy testing spin-off to measure program performance in Ontario’s colleges and universities
The “manifestly false” Level 3 threshold and its legacy in Canada
In my previous post about the ESEE I wrote about how the use of a threshold score to indicate one’s employability along with a normal range (200-300) is unsubstantiated, bewildering and very damaging to adult learners. The problematic use of threshold scores is not limited to the ESEE. Test developers may have simply carried on … Continue reading The “manifestly false” Level 3 threshold and its legacy in Canada
Fair Assessment Practices 