Placement Testing
We test new students with a 32-question placement test. This is combined with the student’s mathematics SAT score and adjusted based on the courses the student has already taken to determine the placement in junior-year mathematics courses. Developing the placement process included determining the weights for each input (placement test, SAT and previous courses), finding appropriate questions for the placement test, and determining criteria for placement in each course based on the placement index that is calculated from the three inputs.
Issues this Best Practice Addresses:
This process was designed to meet the challenge presented by the diversity in the backgrounds of our entering students. They came from approximately one hundred different schools offering a wide variety of courses. Often very different courses have the same titles on transcripts of different schools.
Major Challenges to Implementation:
The initial challenges to implementation largely predated the memories of the current personnel. We avoided making the process too inflexible (a common criticism of tracking in general) by permitting, encouraging, and sometimes requiring students to move up or down a level based on their achievement and motivation in their original course. Students can also appeal their placement and present evidence that they are ready for something different or have some unusual circumstance that is relevant to their placement. About ten years after the initiation of this procedure, one of us carefully analyzed the results to that date and revised the process. The revisions increased the weight of the placement test score relative to the mathematics SAT score, introduced an adjustment based on whether the student has taken Algebra 2, replaced a few of the questions on the placement test, and adjusted the cut points.
Benefits Derived from Implementing this Best Practice:
The benefits of the placement process include student success in the course in which they are placed and in subsequent courses.
Evidence Illustrating Success:
Results are monitored closely and we experience a good rate of success by the students in our courses. Our very good AP scores attest objectively to the success of our placement program.
Submitted by: David Williams, Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities