Item of the Week
Monday, January 24th, 2011This week’s testing item is a favorite of mine to use as an example, because it illustrates just how careful we need to be when looking at standardized testing data.
We will be looking at Item 16 on the 2009 New York State Grade 6 Exam. The performance indicator is “5.G14 Calculate perimeter of basic geometric shapes drawn on a coordinate plane (rectangles and shapes composed of rectangles having sides with integer lengths and parallel to the axes).” You can click the figure below to enlarge.
What is this question testing? Does it fit the performance indicator? Which of the wrong answers would you predict students would choose the most often? Why? What would students need to know and be able to do to answer this question correctly?