Obtaining ITBS Test Materials

Iowa Testing Programs supplies testing materials and services to the schools of Iowa. For determining which schools are eligible to participate, Iowa Testing Programs uses the Educational Directory created by the Iowa Department of Education. Schools listed in the directory may participate; others must obtain services in conjunction with a participating school or Area Education Agency (AEA).

Home-Schooled Students

Test materials for use with home-schooled students can be obtained through the public school district where the student resides or through the AEA that encompasses the student's residence. Arrangements might be made for such students to test at the local school when students of that district take their tests. If the district has a home-school assistance center, arrangements for testing might be made with that center. In some AEAs, the ITBS is administered on certain dates expressly for home-schooled students who are not able to be tested through their school district of residence. In no case are ITBS tests available to parents or licensed teachers as individuals.

Braille and Large-Print Tests

To obtain tests and directions for use with visually impaired students, the school district should work with the itinerant teacher from their AEA who provides services to the student and the school for this purpose. Braille materials come from the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. If the materials are not available through the AEA, contact Iowa Testing Programs. Advance planning will be needed to ensure that materials are available locally by the scheduled testing date. Answer documents based on use of large-print versions can be scored with all other documents from the district. However, answer documents from using the Braille version must be scored by hand so that Braille norms can be applied to the scores. Such documents should be sent to ITP with a written request for handscoring.

Writing

There is a separate testing program for writing, and an order form for materials for the Iowa Writing Assessment (IWA) can be obtained by calling ITP. The IWA can be given at any time of the year; it need not be given when the ITBS battery is given; and, because scoring is done locally, the scores from this assessment cannot be included on any reports of scores for the ITBS battery.

Constructed-Response Supplement to the ITBS/ITED

The purpose of these assessments is to measure important learning outcomes drawn from the content specifications for the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the Iowa Tests of Educational Development (ITED), with an emphasis on knowledge and skills best measured with an open-ended format. The Constructed-Response Supplement (CRS) is available for levels 9-18 (that is, grades 3-12). Although the assessments are untimed, most students will be able to finish each assessment in 30 minutes. The CRS can be used in conjunction with the ITBS or ITED multiple-choice test batteries, locally developed tests, and classroom assessments. Therefore, the CRS can serve effectively as a multiple measure of the attainment of content standards and benchmarks. In particular, the CRS provides a somewhat different assessment format than multiple-choice tests because students construct answers rather than select them, a variety of approaches can be used to correctly solve problems or respond to situations, many of the questions have more than one acceptable answer, multiple modes of written communication can be used to answer questions (for example, words, diagrams, symbols, and calculations), and partial credit scoring is used.