CASAS
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CASAS (Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System) (858) 292-2900 www.casas.org
Life and Work series; Employability Competency System series; Workforce Learning Systems series; Life Skills series; Citizenship series
Purpose: To assess a learner’s ability to apply basic reading, math (numeracy), listening, writing and speaking skills in common everyday life situations encountered as a worker, a family member, and a community member.
Approach: CASAS standardized assessment is criterion-referenced and provides both useful information on a student's general progress in basic (reading, math, listening, writing and/or speaking) skills as well as functional life competency information to target instruction.
Target population: Adults in basic education programs, ESOL programs, workforce learning programs, special education programs, corrections. For learners with skills spanning beginning literacy through transition-to-postsecondary levels.
Administration: Training is required to implement CASAS testing so local programs become aware of the variety of intake and implementation options and test series (contexts), and can make the best possible use of test results.
Test length/constraints: Reading, Math, Listening and Writing assessments can be group administered (30 – 60 min/test). Computer-delivered versions also available. Speaking assessments are administered face-to-face (15 – 20 min/test).
Comments: CASAS assessments measure general proficiency ─ in the skill areas of reading, math, listening, writing, and speaking ─ in functional life contexts. Results are reported on an IRT scale that ranges from Beginning Literacy to Advanced ESL and High Adult Secondary. These scores correspond to all NRS levels for ABE and ESL. There are five CASAS series, offering different contexts depending on learners' goals: general life skills; employability (preparing for work); workplace (on the job); life and work (a combination of life skills and workplace), and citizenship (preparing for USCIS exams). The CASAS system was designed with the intention that programs would select the context (series) that most closely relates to their students' goals, based on a local needs assessment.
CASAS is most known for standardized multiple-choice assessments of reading and listening for ESL and reading and math for ABE that have been approved for NRS accountability reporting. For ESL, some states use only reading, some use only listening, some use both, and some offer a choice of reading or listening. For ABE, some states use only reading, many use both reading and math, and some use reading or math, depending on learner goals. Since 1996, the CASAS standardized performance-based Functional Writing Assessment has also been available for NRS accountability reporting and is now being used in 7 states, in addition to or as an alternative to multiple-choice testing of reading and/or listening. Two standardized performance-based speaking tests are also available: one is the Citizenship Interview Test (CIT), a simulated citizenship oral interview, and the other, Workplace Speaking, assesses workplace speaking and listening skills. For citizenship preparation programs, the Government and History for Citizenship test measures the knowledge required for citizenship in a multiple-choice format.
Teachers using CASAS standardized assessments are encouraged to use the CASAS Competencies as a resource to develop student needs assessments and then target instruction to students' particular needs. CASAS produces and annually updates the Quick Search Materials software (CD) that references 1600 commercially available instructional resources to the CASAS Competencies.
The competencies, which become the test content and provide the context for assessing on standardized CASAS pre and post-tests, are determined from extensive national surveys to identify the highest priority competencies for each instructional level. The new Life and Work series also provides analysis of basic skills objectives. This diagnostic information can be reported to teachers and students very quickly using TOPSpro software or through manual compilation of test results. Programs that use CASAS standardized pre/post test results in this way find that there is a strong link between curriculum, instruction and assessment.
CASAS also provides training and technical assistance to local agencies in the development of classroom based performance assessments that complement standardized assessment to assess additional student needs and goals at the classroom level. CASAS was developed as a system to provide both formative and summative assessment to inform the teaching/learning cycle. Both comprehensive standardized assessment and classroom based performance assessments are important in monitoring student progress based on student goals.
CASAS, a non-profit organization, was originally created in 1980 to develop tests to meet the needs of California's ABE and ESL programs with support from the California Department of Education. In 1984, CASAS was approved by the U.S. Department of Education as an exemplary, validated program for national dissemination. The vision and hard work of thousands of local programs and other states' Departments of Education have contributed to all the test series CASAS has to offer programs and learners across all states.
