Alignment outlines the integration of the curriculum guidelines and assessment design in providing parameters for educators to facilitate student development to realize better learning outcomes. In promoting standards-based educational reforms, there should be a balance between instructional programs and coherence in a standard of content and assessment protocols. The alignment concept provides criteria in which educators establish whether the instructional contents are dependable, assessable, and empirical to provide tailored information to facilitate learners' achievement. Research is an essential aspect of alignment with the ever-changing curriculum and the instructional program, which will also help further in shaping future inquiries and policies. Alignment goes hand in hand with accountability, where professionals working with students need to have it to endure education improvement and learner achievements.
Achieve alignment model is mainly used to offer comparisons of one state or nation education standards to another, providing educators specialized training, along with performing education reform audits. The model offers comprehensive assessment-to-standards protocol that gives both qualitative and quantitative results on the alignment of tests in line with the state standards. In this model, it uses protocols where education expertise analyzes the contents and assess the alignment level amongst assessment items using five standard criteria, which include range, balance, challenge, as well as performance and content centrality. The determination of these standard criteria requires an individual assessment of each test item. Assessors evaluate, in a row, to establish content and performance distinctiveness needed by a single test item against a particular standard allocating each one of four scores based on the alignment degree. In evaluating challenge sources, each item is analyzed to ascertain its objectivity and the demand level ranging it on a 1-4 scale. In the assessment of balance, assessors have to determine the scope of the content outlined in the standard criteria whether or not the related items are presented with an appropriate corresponding value. Assessors also determine the range, which is the objectives proportionality describing at least one test item assessed using the standard criteria representing the overall coverage indicator.
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Reference
Roach, A. T., Niebling, B. C., & Kurz, A. (2008). Evaluating the alignment among curriculum, instruction, and assessments: Implications and applications for research and practice. Psychology in the Schools , 45 (2), 158-176.
