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Adult and Community Learning Services

Be a Pilot Site for Trying Out the New BEST Plus Assessment

There are two ways programs can get involved as a pilot site for the BEST Plus. The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), the test developers of the BEST test, are in the final stages of developing the new version of the BEST test, BEST Plus. CAL asked ACLS if 2-3 sites would be interested in working a more in-depth manner with the BEST who would like to help them with their final preparations before distributing the test. In this pilot, CAL is interested in finding out how their support materials work with the test. The pilot is planned for this March through June, 2003. CAL is interested in sites that are currently using the BEST. Program staff who participate will receive free training in BEST Plus and free assessment materials for the program. CAL also is interested in having these programs test students with both BEST and BEST Plus to evaluate the validity of the scores. (This would need to be done only during this pilot from March through June). The day-long training will take place on March 3, 2003, at the Mount Wachusett Community College Devens Site, at 94 Jackson Road, Sherman Square, Devens, MA. The training time will be announced shortly. Please respond by Tuesday, February 25 to the contact below if you are interested in participating.

Once CAL is finished with development, ACLS will also be piloting the BEST Plus before rolling it out for statewide use in assessing student educational gain. We are looking for approximately 15 sites that would be interested in piloting the BEST Plus and helping us evaluate how the test works, and how the policies and materials will be developed. The pilot will be from this July 1, 2003 through the end of June, 2004. If all goes well, then ACLS would have ESE-funded programs use it instead of the BEST test beginning FY05 (July 1, 2004). We hope pilot programs will be from across the state, and of varying sizes. Programs can pilot either the computer or print version of the assessment. We hope that programs that did the initial pilot above would want to continue the yearlong pilot, but they don't have to. If you're interested in participating, please respond to Jane at the contact information below by Monday, March 17.

The BEST Plus has some changes from the current BEST. A staff person uses a computer program to administer and score the test; students don't use the computer and only use the monitor to see images related to test questions. Because it is computer–based, there will be hundreds more test questions that can be used to test students. Depending if a student answers test questions correctly or not, the test question's level of difficulty adjusts accordingly. This is good news for students who are not able to answer many questions correctly. CAL also states it will make the test half the amount of time to administer. There is also a print–based version for programs that don't wish to use computers. There won't be a short or long–form version of the assessment as it will be short. Because the test is using many new test questions not included in the current BEST, the scale scores for the BEST Plus are different from the current BEST, and will need a conversion chart for correlation.

If you have other questions, and for more information on your program being a pilot site, please contact Jane Schwerdtfeger at janes@doe.mass.edu. We hope to hear from you and gain your valuable input in this process.