Time Limit for Map-M Testing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't seem to get it. Putting a time limit on the test makes the results essentially invalid and a big waste of money. Sometimes the test saves certain topics for the end. So it might tell you that Larlo is great at multiplication but can't do basic fractions but it could just be because Larlo was told just to skip through the last 10 questions. What good does this do anyone?

It would be so unethical if they are imposing time limits at wealthy schools and not at Title I or Focus schools.

Literally no one has suggested this, or even hinted at it. Simmer down, Buffy. Not everything is a plot against wealthy white folks.

P.S. Eat the rich.

[Anonymous]

I live in another city where MAP scores are used as a factor in school admissions so I wouldn't be so cavalier about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't seem to get it. Putting a time limit on the test makes the results essentially invalid and a big waste of money. Sometimes the test saves certain topics for the end. So it might tell you that Larlo is great at multiplication but can't do basic fractions but it could just be because Larlo was told just to skip through the last 10 questions. What good does this do anyone?

It would be so unethical if they are imposing time limits at wealthy schools and not at Title I or Focus schools.

Literally no one has suggested this, or even hinted at it. Simmer down, Buffy. Not everything is a plot against wealthy white folks.

P.S. Eat the rich.

I do wonder if the kids taking the extra long time are mostly kids who have outside non-parental coaching on how to do their best on the test. My DCs have some pretty basic limits on how long they will bother with something, even when told it is not a race to finish first, etc.

[Anonymous]

My DS would do well on the fall test until he saw whether or not that year's teacher would allow students who finish to play games on the computer. His winter and spring scores were much lower. I hope they don't put too much stock in these scores since they depend a lot on the testing conditions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I do wonder if the kids taking the extra long time are mostly kids who have outside non-parental coaching on how to do their best on the test. My DCs have some pretty basic limits on how long they will bother with something, even when told it is not a race to finish first, etc.

My child takes a very long time. She is in second grade and seems to be really good at math, naturally and without any kind of “non-parental” coaching. Parental coaching has involved some simple fractions when we cook, because she likes that. But she is good at math, and not a super-gifted prodigy, so while she is good at figuring out concepts she hasn’t learned, she still goes slowly because if she gets something like 138 + 264 she has had to figure it out by adding the parts up and without the computing knowledge that older kids have. She has a high tenacity and doesn’t give up, so she gets very high scores but she does take a long time to get there.

[Anonymous]

You don't seem to get it. Putting a time limit on the test makes the results essentially invalid and a big waste of money. Sometimes the test saves certain topics for the end. So it might tell you that Larlo is great at multiplication but can't do basic fractions but it could just be because Larlo was told just to skip through the last 10 questions. What good does this do anyone?

It would be so unethical if they are imposing time limits at wealthy schools and not at Title I or Focus schools.

Its very useful to MCPS to do this in schools with a large asian demographic where they don't want those kids to go to a magnet. If they can lower the MAP scores of the demographic that does too well in their opinion its a win for the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS would do well on the fall test until he saw whether or not that year's teacher would allow students who finish to play games on the computer. His winter and spring scores were much lower. I hope they don't put too much stock in these scores since they depend a lot on the testing conditions.

If your child is in the running for ES or MS magnet, they absolutely do! An unusually (for her) winter MAP-M cost my child a CES spot last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Some seriously ignorant people on here. Perhaps they're MCPS shills

They must be. No educated person would consider test results valid if one kid is taking it untimed and the other is taking it timed and can't finish the test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS would do well on the fall test until he saw whether or not that year's teacher would allow students who finish to play games on the computer. His winter and spring scores were much lower. I hope they don't put too much stock in these scores since they depend a lot on the testing conditions.

If your child is in the running for ES or MS magnet, they absolutely do! An unusually (for her) winter MAP-M cost my child a CES spot last year.

He is no longer in public schools because of so much BS. You can only take it for so long before you jump ship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's really weird.

There's no real "finish" to a MAP test, it just ends when the student starts missing enough questions. The questions get progressively harder, and when they start missing a certain number of them, the test ends. The idea is that kids will keep going until they reach the limit of their current abilities.

Some kids might answer a total of 40 questions, some 53, some 70, depending on how many they answered correctly before they started getting them wrong. It's not timed because some kids can keep going much longer than others, even if they're all answering the questions at the same speed. You actually _want_ them to keep going as long as they can, because it means they're still getting the questions right.

In fact, if you look at the NWEA's own statistics, the mean test times last year for "high-performing" 4th and 5th graders on MAP-M were over 80 minutes: https://www.nwea.org/content/uploads/2018/08/Average-MAP-Growth-Test-Durations.pdf.
Among all kids, the mean was closer to an hour.

So MCPS would be shooting themselves in the foot if they limited kids to an hour. Why on earth would you invalidate the scores of any student who took longer than an hour, when statistically those are likely to be your highest scores?

Even if it wasn't really an MCPS policy, but something the teachers just made up because they didn't want the bother of proctoring another day of testing, it would be a really dumb thing to do. The inevitable low scores would reflect badly on the school and on the teachers.

Unless someone else here knows something I don't, I think I'd follow up and keep pressing for more details. I get that they might want to encourage your son to work more quickly, because it could be an issue on other types of standardized tests, but it makes zero sense to set a hard time limit on MAP.

That's very well explained. You should include that in your complaint, to show the Principal and the teacher that they shouldn't mess with you.

This is not accurate, although the test is adaptive, the number of questions only varies by one or two questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's really weird.

There's no real "finish" to a MAP test, it just ends when the student starts missing enough questions. The questions get progressively harder, and when they start missing a certain number of them, the test ends. The idea is that kids will keep going until they reach the limit of their current abilities.

Some kids might answer a total of 40 questions, some 53, some 70, depending on how many they answered correctly before they started getting them wrong. It's not timed because some kids can keep going much longer than others, even if they're all answering the questions at the same speed. You actually _want_ them to keep going as long as they can, because it means they're still getting the questions right.

In fact, if you look at the NWEA's own statistics, the mean test times last year for "high-performing" 4th and 5th graders on MAP-M were over 80 minutes: https://www.nwea.org/content/uploads/2018/08/Average-MAP-Growth-Test-Durations.pdf.
Among all kids, the mean was closer to an hour.

So MCPS would be shooting themselves in the foot if they limited kids to an hour. Why on earth would you invalidate the scores of any student who took longer than an hour, when statistically those are likely to be your highest scores?

Even if it wasn't really an MCPS policy, but something the teachers just made up because they didn't want the bother of proctoring another day of testing, it would be a really dumb thing to do. The inevitable low scores would reflect badly on the school and on the teachers.

Unless someone else here knows something I don't, I think I'd follow up and keep pressing for more details. I get that they might want to encourage your son to work more quickly, because it could be an issue on other types of standardized tests, but it makes zero sense to set a hard time limit on MAP.

That's very well explained. You should include that in your complaint, to show the Principal and the teacher that they shouldn't mess with you.

This is not accurate, although the test is adaptive, the number of questions only varies by one or two questions.

Not true at all. Cite your evidence that the number of questions varies by only one or two questions.

[Anonymous]

This is more likely to happen in high performing schools that have fewer staff. You have more kids getting into levels that require more time and you have fewer staff available to pull out the kids that need to continue.

Any parent of a kid with special needs can tell you that the local schools constantly re-assign the para educators to cover things like a classroom if the principal wants a meeting with a teacher, recess, cover if a teacher is approved to leave early but not early enough to get a sub, help with administrative work in the office etc.

[Anonymous]

From the NWEA:

The MAP Growth assessment is untimed, meaning that limits are not placed on how much time a student has to respond to the items.

https://www.nwea.org/content/uploads/2018/08/Average-MAP-Growth-Test-Durations.pdf
If MCPS is restricting the time to 1 hour, it is rendering the results invalid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the NWEA:

The MAP Growth assessment is untimed, meaning that limits are not placed on how much time a student has to respond to the items.

https://www.nwea.org/content/uploads/2018/08/Average-MAP-Growth-Test-Durations.pdf
If MCPS is restricting the time to 1 hour, it is rendering the results invalid.

Should OP report the testing violation to the NWEA? Do they have the right to insist that the test be untimed if MCPS is using their scoring system to compare kids to other kids nationwide?

[Anonymous]

My son in MS reported this year that his teacher gave him extra time but told him that admins only want kids to take up to 1 hr. I don't want to get her in trouble so won't name school but it is one of the schools identified as having a large peer cohort during the magnet admissions fiasco last year.