The Iowa Tests of Educational Development (ITED) are a set of

standardized tests A standardized test is a Test (assessment), test that is administered and scored in a consistent or standard manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored ...

given annually to

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

students in many schools in the United States, covering Grades 9 to 12. The tests were created by the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

College of Education In the United States and Canada, a school of education (or college of education; ed school) is a division within a university that is devoted to scholarship in the field of education, which is an interdisciplinary branch of the social sciences e ...

in 1942, as part of a program to develop a series of nationally accepted standardized achievement tests. The primary goal of the ITED is to provide information to assist educators in improving teaching.https://web.archive.org/web/20110506042222/http://www.education.uiowa.edu/itp/ited/Default.aspx ITED: Iowa Tests of Educational Development”. University of Iowa.

Goals of the ITED

Rather than testing a student's content knowledge, the ITED endeavors to evaluate students' skills in a variety of areas, especially based on

problem solving Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles, a frequent part of most activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks (e.g. how to turn on an appliance) to complex issues in business an ...

and critical analysis of texts. These are considered by the authors of the ITED to be skills acquired across multiple curricular areas and skills that are important for academic success.https://web.archive.org/web/20110102221715/http://www.education.uiowa.edu/itp/ited/ited_about_prp.aspx ”Purposes – About the Tests – ITED: Iowa Tests of Educational Development” University of Iowa. Within the skill areas evaluated by the ITED, the test is designed to elicit information about a student's current skill level, growth and abilities within each area tested. The ITED is designed to examine and compare a student's ability in several educational fields, including vocabulary, reading comprehension, language, spelling, mathematical concepts and problem solving, computation, analysis of social studies materials, analysis of science materials, and use of sources. Although the test is broken up into these fields, the goal of the ITED is to track the development of the skills and analysis needed in each of these areas rather than the content.

ITED Sections

Vocabulary

The

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

section of the ITED focuses on testing the development of students' vocabulary for everyday communication.https://web.archive.org/web/20110102221714/http://www.education.uiowa.edu/itp/ited/ited_about_desc.aspx “Description – About the Tests – ITED: Iowa Tests of Educational Development”. University of Iowa. Retrieved 2009-09-07.http://www.riverpub.com/products/ited/details.html “Riverside Publishing - Iowa Tests of Educational Development (ITED) Details”. Riverside Publishing. Retrieved 2009-09-07.

Reading Comprehension

The

reading comprehension Reading comprehension is the ability to process written text, understanding, understand its meaning, and to integrate with what the reader already knows. Reading Comprehension of spoken language, comprehension relies on two abilities that are co ...

section of the ITED tests literal understanding as well as the higher-level skills of inference and analysis.

Language: Revising Written Materials

The

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

section of the ITED focuses on students' ability to revise and edit texts, include issues of style and clarity as well as grammatical errors.

Spelling

The ITED

spelling Spelling is a set of conventions for written language regarding how graphemes should correspond to the sounds of spoken language. Spelling is one of the elements of orthography, and highly standardized spelling is a prescriptive element. Spelli ...

test presents students with groups of words; students must indicate which word is misspelled or whether they are all spelled correctly.

Mathematics: Concepts and Problem Solving

This section focuses on problem solving and logical thinking skills rather than mathematical computation. Some questions require basic computation while others require students to determine the steps necessary to solve a problem without actually completing the problem itself.

Analysis of Social Studies Materials

This ITED section requires students to analyze information presented to them and will often contain documents including

map A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...

s, graphs and reading passages.

Analysis of Science Materials

The science materials section of the ITED evaluates students' familiarity and comfort with scientific procedures and their ability to understand and analyze scientific information and methods.

Sources of Information

The sources of information section tests students' ability to do research and to use the resources available to them to find information.

Uses of the ITED

The ITED is used in the majority of schools in the state of

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

, both in the

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

and

private education A private school or independent school is a school not administered or funded by the government, unlike a public school. Private schools are schools that are not dependent upon national or local government to finance their financial endowme ...

sectors, and the tests have found some use in other regions of the United States. The ITED is administered in the fall Ansley, Timothy N. Forsyth; Robert A (1990). “An Investigation of the Nature of the Interaction of Reading and Computational Abilities in Solving Mathematics Word Problems”. Applied Measurement in Education 3(5), 319-330.Shymansky, James A.; Enger, Sandra; Chidsey, Jennifer L.; Yore, Larry D; et al. (1997). “Performance Assessment in Science as a Tool to Enhance the Picture of Student Learning”. School Science and Mathematics, 97(4), 172-183. and results are used along with classroom observation and student work by teachers to evaluate the progress of a student's abilities. The ITED results are also used by the state of Iowa to monitor schools' progress and determine if schools and students are meeting goals.http://www.greatschools.net/students/local-facts-resources/testing-in-IA.gs?content=463 “Testing in Iowa: An Overview”. GreatSchools.net. Retrieved 2009-09-07. Individual student ITED results are used to help determine placements and tracks. The ITED helps educators and students plan student schedules by providing information for the school to use in placing students in classes of varying levels of difficulty. The results also provide information about students' academic potential, assisting students and school advisors as they make their high school course selections and plan for college.Qualls, Audrey L.; Ansley, Timothy N (1995). “The Predictive Relationship of ITBS and ITED to Measures of Academic Success”. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55, 485-98. The ITED is scored based on the number of questions a student answered correctly.von Schrader, Sarah; Ansley, Timothy (2006). “Sex Differences in the Tendency to Omit Items on Multiple-Choice Tests: 1980-2000”. Applied Measurement in Education, 19(1), 41-65. Research has indicated that there is a correlation between ITED scores and student grade point averages (GPAs), although these correlations were lower than expected and lower than indicated by prior research.

References

External links

Iowa Testing Programs

Utah State Office Of Education: Assessment & Accountability - The IOWA Tests

* ttp://www.greatschools.net/students/local-facts-resources/testing-in-IA.gs?content=463 Testing in Iowa: An Overview {{DEFAULTSORT:Iowa Tests Of Educational Development Tests of Educational Development, Iowa Standardized tests in the United States Achievement tests