Abstract:

First introduced in the 1980s, curriculum-based measurement (CBM) assessments have become an almost ubiquitous accompaniment to Response to Intervention (RTI), the special education reform movement newly authorized by the U.S. Department of Education. Dozens of studies have provided extensive reliability and validity data on mathematics CBMs, leading to their widespread acceptance both for RTI universal screening and progress monitoring.
Yet, technical factors on mathematics CBMs have been modest in power. That is, reliability and validity results tend to be between .50 and .70 (Foegen, 2008). While such results validate CBM as one source of feedback on intervention effectiveness, they are moderate and make it problematic for CBM to be used as a sole determinant on high-stakes educational decisions.
We suggest that enhanced sophistication in technology provides opportunities to improve the technical quality of CBM math probes. Past technology-based CBMs have done little more than automate functions that teachers previously carried out by hand. For example, technology-based CBMs have provided test items on the computer screen rather than on a paper worksheet provided by the teacher. CBM software provides scoring of probes and uses results to create tables and charts, rather than the teacher being burdened with the scoring, tabling, and charting as in conventional CBMs. Efficiency and convenience have been improved over paper-and-pencil CBMs, but there has been little or no improvement in technical test quality with the advent of technology-based CBMs.
Online data analytic techniques can increase the sophistication of CBM results for improved technical adequacy. Our research is based on a CBM entitled Path Driver for Mathematics, an online assessment in development by Educators Publishing Service/School Specialty Literacy and Intervention. This Kindergarten-12th grade CBM has been undergoing beta testing and norming during the 2010-12 academic years, with over 10,000 students in a range of locations across the U.S.A (Torlakovic & Balajthy, 2011). The software is provided from servers in Ottawa, Canada, where the results data are maintained and the student, classroom, and school reports are generated.
The paper focuses on use of technology to provide a more complex structure of CBM administration and data analysis in an effort to achieve (1) a sophisticated online interpretation of probe results, (2) a complex understanding of how the various assessment components come together in different ways at different grade and ability levels to yield the best possible general outcome measures, and (3) an ongoing, fluid approach to providing normative measures, all in an overall effort to (4) achieve a powerful technical adequacy in terms of statistical reliability and validity.

Foegen, A. (2008). Progress monitoring in middle school mathematics. Reading and Special
Education, 29, 195-207.
Torlakovic, E., & Balajthy, E. (2011). An interdisciplinary approach to software development in
educational technology. EDULearn 11 (pp. 4330-4338). Madrid, Spain: International
Association for Technology, Education and Development.