Abstract

The Student Growth Objectives are assessments created locally or by commercial educational organizations. The students’ scores from the Student Growth Objectives are included in teacher summative evaluation as one of the measures of teacher’s effectiveness. The high amplitude of the requirements in teacher evaluation raised a concern of whether New Jersey public school teachers were competent in assessment theory to effectively utilize the state mandated tests. The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify New Jersey teachers’ competence in student educational assessments. The researcher measured teachers’ assessment literacy level between different groups based on subject taught, years of experience, school assignment and educational degree attained. The data collection occurred via e-mail. Seven hundred ninety eight teachers received an Assessment Literacy Inventory survey developed by Mertler and Campbell. Eighty-two teachers fully completed the survey (N=82). The inferential analysis included an independent-sample t test, One-Way Analyses of Variances test, a post hoc, Tukey test and Welch and Brown-Forsythe tests. The results of this study indicated teachers’ overall scores of 51% on entire instrument. The highest overall score of 61% was for Standard 1, Choosing Appropriate Assessment Methods. The lowest overall score of 39% was for Standard 2, Developing Appropriate Assessment Methods. The conclusion of this study was that New Jersey teachers demonstrated a low level of competence in student educational assessments. In general, the teacher assessment literacy did not improve during the last two decades.

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