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National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies: 2-Year Full Impact Sample Files: Calibrating Scores on Two Tests of Adult Literacy

 Calibrating Scores on Two Tests of Adult Literacy: An Equating Study of the Test of Adult Literacy Skills (TALS) Document Test and the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) GAIN Appraisal Reading Test (Form 2)  A report prepared for the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation  by: Walter Haney Larry Ludlow Anastasia Raczek Sonia Stryker, and Ann Jones  Boston College Program in Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation Campion Hall Chestnut Hill, MA 02167  October 1994  [revised October 1996]   I.	Introduction Amid widespread concern over the learning and skills of American workers, the education of adults has been receiving increased attention in national education policy.  In 1985, California established its Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN) Program which emphasized mandatory participation in basic education for weflare recipients who were consided to need it. Similar emphasis on education for welfare recipients was embodied in the federal Family Support Act of 1988 and the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program established under that Act.  And on Mach 31, 1994, President Clinton signed the Educate America Act, which for the first time establishes national education goals as a part of federal law.The sixth of these eight national education goals is that by the year 2000 "every adult Amercian will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship."  Such aspirations for a literate citizenry and workforce, and programs aimed at helping attain them, have prompted renewed attention to the problem of how to measure the literacy of adults.  As several different test  of "adult literacy" are available and are used in connection with various adult education programs, questions quickly arise about the comparability of scores on the different tests of adult literacy.  The purpose of this report is to present the results of a study of two relatively new tests of adult literacy:namely the Test of Adult Literacy Skills (TALS) Document Test (Form B) and the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) GAIN Appraisal Reading Test (Form 2), both used in conjunction with a national evaluation of the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program.  The specific purpose of the study was to   Calibrating Scores, 10/94, p. 2  equate the scores on both tests for a sample of GAIN registrants from Riverside, California, using a variety of traditional and item response theory equating methods.  In this introduction we provide some background on:  *	the JOBS program and its evaluation;  *	the two tests whose comparability we are investigating; and  *	the art of test equating. The JOBS Program and Its Evaluation  The JOBS program began operation in 1989.  Its aim is to increase the literacy, self-sufficiency and employment prospects of people receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the nation's largest cash welfare program, supported with federal and state funds.  Within AFDC, single parents are enrolled in the family group (AFDC-FG) program, while two-parent families are enrolled in the AFDC-U (Unemployed Parent) program. Under the Family Support Act of 1988, the federal government defines parameters and expectations for state JOBS programs; the states determine the sequence and content of program services and decide how to target various parts of the AFDC population.  JOBS program activities may include adult education (adult basic education, preparation for taking the high school equivalency General Educational Development or GED test, and English instruction for speakers of other languages), post-secondary education, jobs skills training, job search workshops, on-the-job training, and unpaid work experience.  Based on the Family Support Act's premise that welfare involves an obligation on the part of those who receive income and services, it requires all AFDC recipients whose children are at least three years of age (age one at state option) to participate in JOBS to the extent that resources permit, and AFDC payments   Calibrating Scores, 10/94, p. 3.  are to be reduced for people who do not cooperate with their assigned program activities (exemptions may be granted to recipients who meet specified criteria). Thus the JOBS program is broad in its coverage and in its emphasis on developing human resources and employment prospects welfare recipients.  To analyze the effectiveness of the JOBS welfare-to-work program, a longitudinal evaluation is being conducted by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) in several communities, usingrandom assignment of welfare recipients to treatment and control conditions.  The study is being funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Education.  The study of one of the communities in the evaluation, Riverside, California, is also being funded by the California Department of Social Services (which in turn received funding from the California Department of Education, the California State Job Training Coordinating Council, HHS, and the Ford Foundation)  A key issue in the JOBS evaluation is whether JOBS has different impacts on different types of welfare recipients.  A particularly important question is whether the education, training and job search activities in JOBS may have different effects on people who enter JOBS with lower literacy than on people who enter with higher literacy.  To examine this hypothesis regarding the impacts of JOBS on "subgroups" with high and low literacy, it is necessary to measure the literacy of people in the evaluation before they are randomly assigned. This has been done in four JOBS evaluation sites; however, two different tests were used in these sites, making it difficult to define literacy subgroups using a consistent measure. (Different tests were used in different sites because in California and Oregon, state regulations    Calibrating Scores. 10/94, p. 4.  require the use of CASAS tests; the TALS Document Literacy test was selected for use in other evaluation sites by MDRC and the federal agencies funding the evaluation.) Therefore, in order to examine one of the prime questions about the impact of JOBS, it is necessary to understand the relationship between welfare recipients' scores on the TALS and CASAS tests that they took when they entered the JOBS program. An additional reason for seeking to understand the equivalence of CASAS and TALS test scores is to facilitate comparison of test-takers at different JOBS evaluation sites. Finally, from a methodological perspective, we were interested in how well a variety of both traditional and item response theory methods of test equating worked to calibrate scores on these two tests of adult literacy. For these reasons, the MDRC asked us to undertake a study of the comparability of scores on these two measures of adult literacy.  This report is a product of our inquiry.  The Two Tests  The two tests that are the focus of our inquiry are, as mentioned, the CASAS GAIN Appraisal Reading Test (form 2) and the TALS Document Literacy Test. Hence it is useful here to provide a brief introduction to these instruments. More detail on the psychometric properties of these instruments will be presented in chapter 2 of this report.  The CASAS GAIN Appraisal Reading Test (form 2) was developed by a California organization known as the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System or CASAS. CASAS began as a consortium of education providers in California in 1980 with the aim of developing assessments with a functional as opposed to academic focus. In addition to tests used in adult education programs, the CASAS system encompasses a list of competencies developed from the recommendations of adult basic education and English as    Calibrating Scores, 10/94, p. 5  a second language educational program staff in the CASAS consortium, as well as a corresponding curriculum index. In this report, however, we focus on the CASAS reading test used in connection with the evaluation of JOBS, namely, the CASAS GAIN Appraisal Reading Test (form 2).  CASAS tests are constructed from [an] item bank of more than 5,000 test items. Each test item has an established difficulty level based on extensive field testing and analysis. The psychometric theory used to establish this difficulty level is Item Response Theory (IRT) through which each item is assigned a difficulty level on a common scale….CASAS tests are developed to have established difficulty levels primarily for learners at or below high school graduation level. .. . The basic and functional context of CASAS test items includes applied reading, math and listening in a variety of situations. Most CASAS tests are group administered and untimed, but generally take approximately 30 to 40 minutes to administer. (Stiles, Rickard, Kharde, Posey & Martois, 1990, p. 5)  In some JOBS sites, both CASAS reading and math tests are used to determine whether AFDC registrants are lacking in basic skills and thus are in need of education services. For example in the GAIN program in California (GAIN became California's version of JOBS after passage of the JOBS legislation in 1988),  Registrants who lack a high school diploma or a GED, score below 215 on either the reading or mathematics basic skills test or are not proficient in English are determined by GAIN regulations to be in need of basic education. ...A score lower than 215 on the reading or mathematics test is a criterion used by the GAIN program to determine that individuals are in need of basic education. According to CASAS, those who function below 215 are at low literacy levels and have difficulty pursuing programs or jobs other than those that require only minimal literacy skills. (Martinson & Friedlander, 1994, p. 8)  Though both the CASAS reading and math tests are used in some JOBS sites (for example throughout California in the GAIN program), our study focuses on the CASAS reading test titled the "GAIN Appraisal Reading Test    Calibrating Scores, 10/94, p. 6.  (Form 2)" (hereafter we refer to this instrument as the CASAS Reading test.)1 This 15-page test contains 30 multiple-choice items and takes 30 minutes to administer.  Questions on the test require test-takers to answer questions related to filling out a job application and an employee injury report; interpreting a graph, a portion of an employee handbook, a performance appraisal form and a picture of filing cabinets; applying for a social security card number; and reading job ads, a table of contents, a work experience record, and articles about job promotion and income tax. According to the CASAS content specifications for this instrument, 23 of the thirty items with "employment" life skills competencies, three deal with "government and law", two with "consumer economics" and two with "community resources" life skills.2  The TALS Document Literacy Test was developed by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The TALS tests grew out of the 1986 survey of young adult literacy conducted by ETS as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. More recently TALS instruments have also been used in a national study funded by the U.S. Department of Labor (Kirsch & Jungeblut, 1992) and in the National Adult Literacy Survey (Kolstad, 1993).  Like the CASAS tests, the TALS instruments have been developed using Item Response Theory, and focus on a competency-based approach to assessment, rather than a grade-level classification approach that had previously been used in many adult literacy instruments. ETS tests of adult literacy have _____________________________________________________________________________________ 1We should note that this instrument has previously been referred to also as the "GAIN 2 Appraisal Program Reading" test, but after checking with people at MDRC and at CASAS, we have been told that "GAIN Appraisal Reading Test (Form 2)" is the most appropriate full name for this instrument. 2 CASAS (n.d.), "Test Content by Item -Gain Reading and Math Appraisal, Form 2.    Calibrating Scores, 10/94, p. 7.  covered three different aspects of literacy, namely those related to the reading and interpretation of prose, ofdocuments, and of text containing quantitative information.  However, the TALS test used in the MDRC evaluation of the JOBS program covered only document literacy.  The specific instrument employed is titled the "ETS Tests of Applied Literacy Skills Form B Document Literacy" (hereafter referred to as the TALS Document test).  This 15-page test has two parts, each taking 20 minutes to administer, with 14 items in part 1 and 12 items in part 2, for a total of 26 items administered in a total of 40 minutes.  The tasks embodied in the TALS Document test involve reading and interpreting graphs, filling out a savings bank withdrawal form, interpreting a page of telephone billing information, and reading a map of a shuttle bus route.  In sum, the CASAS Reading test and the TALS Document test have many similarities. Both were developed using IRT (which will be discussed more fully in section 5), employ a competency-based approach to assessment, involve similar kinds of " real-life" as opposed to academic tasks, take approximately the same time to administer (30 versus 40 minutes), and are of about the same length (each is 15 pages, but with the CASAS test having 30 items and the TALS 26).  At the same time, these two instruments have significant differences. While the CASAS Reading test is entirely multiple- choice in format, the TALS Document test is entirely short answer fill-in in format. Also, while the CASAS test was created to be used mainly with adults functioning below the level of high school completion, the TALS test was developed to be used with a broader population of adults.  As we explain in the next section, these differences, though seemingly minor, have important     Calibrating Scores, 10/94, p.8  Consequences for an effort such as ours to equate scores on the two instruments.   Calibrating Scores, 10/94, p. 85  One Best Calibration Table?  Given these results, is it possible to derive one best calibration table showing the relationship between CASAS raw scores and TALS scaled scores? Our answer to this question is an equivocal yes  The answer is equivocal for the simple reason that before deciding upon the merits of one equating strategy versus others, one must consider not just the abstract characteristics of statistical distributions such as those discussed above, but the purpose of equating.  Our understanding of MDRC's interest in the results of this equating study is that results are to be used not to make decisions about individual examinees, but instead to allow comparisons among groups of examinees tested with the two instruments in different JOBS sites.  Given this purpose, it obviously would have been preferable to have equating data from more than a single JOBS site, but our comparison of the distribution of CASAS scores in the equating study sample with scores of broader GAIN/JOBS samples in California at least suggests the plausibility of generalizing our results to broader populations of examinees in California.  Therefore we proceeded to construct a single calibration table as follows. Each of the equating strategies employed has some strengths.  For some purposes one approach might be preferred over others.  However, for the broad analytical purposes that MDRC apparently has in mind for the results of this study, we think that greater weight ought to be placed on the convergence of results across the four equating methods employed.    Calibrating Scores, 10/94, p. 87.  JOBS 7-SITE 2-YEAR IMPACT REPORT PUBLIC USE FILE: j2p20045 RUN FREQ TO SHOW CONVERSION OF CASAS TO TALS 08JAN01 11:13 7 SITES Riverside 2)SELECT:RIVERSIDE:PRINT RAW SCALED READ SCORES   CASAS SCALED CASAS RAW  TALS SCALED      READING              LOW READING   SCORE        SCORE       SCORE          LEVEL                  SCORE                         (NEAREST 10)      .          .            .             .                       .    174          1           120      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    182          2           120      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    187          3           130      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    191          4           140      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    193          5           160      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    194          5           160      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    196          6           160      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    198          7           170      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    199          7           170      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    201          8           180      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    203          9           180      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    205         10           190      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    207         11           200      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    209         12           210      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    210         13           210      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    211         13           210      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    212         14           220      LEVEL 1:120-225    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    214         15           230      LEVEL 2:226-275    1:LOW LITERACY SCORE    216         16           230      LEVEL 2:226-275                       0    217         17           230      LEVEL 2:226-275                       0    218         17           230      LEVEL 2:226-275                       0    219         18           240      LEVEL 2:226-275                       0    220         18           240      LEVEL 2:226-275                       0    221         19           250      LEVEL 2:226-275                       0    223         20           260      LEVEL 2:226-275                       0    225         21           260      LEVEL 2:226-275                       0    227         22           270      LEVEL 2:226-275                       0    229         23           270      LEVEL 2:226-275                       0    231         24           280      LEVEL 3:276-325                       0    232         24           280      LEVEL 3:276-325                       0    234         25           290      LEVEL 3:276-325                       0    237         26           300      LEVEL 3:276-325                       0    240         27           310      LEVEL 3:276-325                       0    241         27           310      LEVEL 3:276-325                       0    245         28           330      LEVEL 4:326-375                       0    246         28           330      LEVEL 4:326-375                       0    253         29           350      LEVEL 4:326-375                       0    254         30           370      LEVEL 4:326-375                       0  *Denotes two cases for which analytical and judgmental summaries yielded different TALS scaled scores.   Calibrating Scores, 10/94 p. 87.  figure 6.1 and tried to construct a final table calibrating CASAS raw scores with TALS scaled scores. One adopted an analytical approach, calculating the mean of results across the four equating methods, for each CASAS raw score to the nearest 1.0, 5.0 and 10.0 points on the TALS scaled score scale.  The other member of our team adopted a judgemental approach.  Starting with the presumption that a final equating table ought to include values of TALS scores that are actually reported (that is, only 10's), and with the observation that the Rasch results tend to yield results that were too hight at the lower end of the scale, this analyst derived results shown in Table 6.4.  	Despite the differences in these two independent approaches to summarizing our four different methods of equating CASAS and TALS (when the analytical summary results are rounded to the nearest 10), the results shown in Table 6.4 are remarkably similar.  For 31 possible CASAS raw scores (0-30), the two approaches yield identical TALS scaled scores (assuming rounding to the nearest 10) in all but two cases.  The two differences occurred for CASAS raw scores of five and eight.  This outcome is an indirect reflection of the point made previously, namely that the small number of persons in the equating study sample scoring in the low end of CASAS raw score scale makes equating results highly sensitive to the assumptions implicit in the different equating methods... and hence to assumptions made about the merits of the different equating methods.  	This leads us to three concluding points.  First, results shown in Table 6.4 for the top two thirds of the CASAS raw score scale (above raw scores of 12) are surely much more trustworthy than results for lower CASAS raw scores.  Second, the fact that two of the authors -- who had been working together for several months on this study – came up with slightly different summaries of four different sets of equating results, amply illustrates the role    Calibrating Scores, 10/94, p. 88.  of qualitative judgment as opposed to simple quantitative analysis in the art of test equating.  And finally, this result clearly indicates why this inquiry and hence the title of the report --despite frequent reference to methods of test equating --is best thought of as an exercise in test calibration.  In its general meaning, calibration means graduation of a gauge while making allowances for irregularities.  Making allowance for irregularities can never be reduced completely to rules. It requires considerable judgment.  And our judgment is that while the CASAS and TALS tests can be reasonably well calibrated, they cannot be directly equated.