Summative Assessment
Summative Assessment Resources
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The Kansas State Department of Education complies with the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which require the participation of all students in assessments used for accountability purposes.
Students with disabilities are included to the extent possible in grade- and age-appropriate instruction on the content standards; however, assessments must provide adaptations to provide all students the opportunity to show what they have learned. These adaptations are called accommodations.
Accommodations for students with disabilities are tools or procedures that mediate a student’s disability to permit valid assessment without changing what is being measured. For example, a student with low vision may need accommodations for the test to be accessible. In a test of reading, having reading passages read aloud would change what is being measured, so reading passages aloud to a student is not a valid accommodation. The use of a magnifying tool or a large-print version of a test, however, would be an acceptable accommodation.
The Kansas Assessment Program provides numerous accommodations for students with disabilities:
- • Accommodations are available for students who are not yet proficient in English.
- • The Dynamic Learning Maps® (DLM®) Alternate Assessment System is available for students with significant cognitive disabilities.
Kite Educator Portal allows educators and test administrators to identify supports that are used in the classroom on a regular basis and enter them into a Personal Needs Profile (PNP). Students’ PNPs should be well thought out and created before beginning any type of assessment. For additional information on completing a student's PNP, refer to the Kite Educator Portal Manual for Test Coordinators.
- Kansas Accessibility Manual
- KSDE Fact Sheet – Text-to-Speech New
About the Summative Assessment
The KAP summative assessment is typically given statewide and used for accountability purposes. Summative assessments are conducted over six weeks each spring, with a two-week testing window for remote students. It is the largest grain size of all assessments, covering all content standards for a grade and subject. It includes targets of performance, usually called performance or achievement levels. These tests are longer as they require sufficient items for reliability. Question types include selected-response items such as multiple-choice or multi-select or open-ended.
- Summative assessments provide evidence of learning and mastery of standards.
- Summarize what students know and do not know.
- Facilitate a systematic collective response to address future student learning needs
- Assist with program or course evaluation
- Evaluate curriculum and programs
- Help drive professional learning
- Provide information for local, state, and federal accountability purposes
- Administered after an extended period of instruction, usually at the end of the school year