Development and Validation of a Comprehensive Assessment System for Teaching and Learning.

This paper summarizes major research and development activities and reports the results of the development and validation of a comprehensive on-the-job statewide teacher assessment system designed to make inferences about enhancing student learning through classroom observation data--the System for Teaching and Learning Assessment and Review (STAR). The STAR was developed in response to legislative mandates in Louisiana; it is used to train principals, master teachers, supervisors, college faculty, and other educators to complete thorough assessments of beginning and experienced teachers' classroom performances for the purpose of renewable professional certification. Beginning in the 1988-89 school year and continuing through the 1989-90 fiscal year, work focused on the development, validation, and piloting of the STAR. The STAR represents a comprehensive dichotomous decision-making framework designed to assess key elements of effective teaching and learning. It consists of 117 assessment indicators that operationalize 22 teaching and learning components organized by four performance dimensions. The following analyses were conducted to establish the STAR's reliability and validity: validation studies; review of the research literature; content verification surveys; factor analyses; descriptive summaries of assessment data; external review; criterion-related validity studies; concurrent validity studies; reliability studies; standard-setting studies; external committee review; and qualitative studies. Data show that the STAR validly and reliably assesses effective teaching and makes inferences about student learning in a wide variety of classroom contexts. Nineteen data tables and a 46-item list of references are included. An appendix provides further details on the STAR, supplemented by 19 tables. (RLC)