Technical Features of Curriculum-Based Measurement in Writing

Abstract

This article reviews research examining technical features of curriculum-based measurement (CBM) in written expression. Twenty-eight technical reports and published articles are included in this review. Studies examining the development and technical adequacy of measures of written expression are summarized, beginning with research conducted at the Institute for Research on Learning Disabilities at the University of Minnesota and followed by extensions of this work. Differences in technical features of writing tasks, sample durations, and scoring procedures employed within and across elementary and secondary levels are highlighted. Gaps in research addressing the technical adequacy of CBM in written expression are identified, and implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Examining the transcription-writing link: Effects of handwriting fluency and spelling accuracy on writing performance via planning and translating in middle grades

“…CWS were defined as two adjacent writing units (words and punctuation) that were semantically and syntactically acceptable within the context of the text. Although this measure may consider spelling correctness (McMaster & Espin, 2007), so that spelling and translating measures were not confounded, spelling and capitalization errors that clearly did not interfere with either the meaning or the syntactic correctness of the sentence were ignored from CWS scoring in the present study. Morpho-syntactic errors, such as , 2000) was used to extract the total number of words.…”

Exploring relationships between working memory and writing: Individual differences associated with gender

“…The children were asked to write for five minutes about the picture and given a warning with one minute remaining. For children in these school grades this is a common procedure and appropriate time scale for curriculum-based assessments with performance related to standardised writing assessment tools (see McMaster & Espin, 2007 for a review).…”

Assessing children's writing products: the role of curriculum based measures

“…Various approaches to evaluation of written composition have been used by researchers and teachers, including holistic scoring, analytic scoring, quantitative scoring, and curriculum based measurement measures (Abbott & Berninger, 1993;Lee, Gentile, & Kantor, 2010;McMaster & Espin, 2007;Puranik & AlOtaiba, 2012;Scott & Windsor, 2000;Wagner et al, 2011). These various evaluation approaches differ in purposes and in the underlying assumptions about the dimensionality of written composition.…”

“…Holistic measures have the advantage of providing a single score with relatively little time involvement from the assessor, but they are limited in their ability to reliably differentiate among writing levels, monitor change over time and capture differential performance on the key components of writing (Espin et al, 2000). In younger children and those with learning disabilities the short amount of text which is typically produced can also reduce the validity of a holistic approach to evaluation (McMaster & Espin, 2007).…”