Alignment

In educational assessment, alignment refers to how well assessments measure what is taught or intended to be taught. In 2002, Norman Webb described alignment as the “extent to which expectations and assessments are in agreement and serve in conjunction with one another to guide the system toward students learning what they are expected to know and do” (p. 1). This entry discusses the models used to measure and understand alignment and the reasons why alignment is important.

Most alignment models consider the match or overlap between curriculum (in the form of content standards or curriculum guides), tests or other assessment tools, and classroom instruction. Because of this, measures of alignment are best thought of as a form of content-related evidence of validity. According to Stephen Haynes, David Richard, and Edward Kubany, content-related validity is understood to be how well an assessment instrument reflects the particular construct that is being measured by the instrument. Although the concept of alignment can be applied in a variety of contexts (e.g. credentialing, employment tests), its most frequent application has been in the realm of K–12 standards-based accountability.

Among the many provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, perhaps none received as much attention as the requirement that states develop and administer annual statewide standardized tests in Grades 3–8 and at least once in high school. These tests were intended to measure [Page 63]both students’ knowledge and their progress toward meeting state-defined performance standards. The idea behind the testing requirement was that combining student achievement data with strong accountability consequences for schools, districts, and state education agencies would result in improved academic outcomes. To achieve this objective, educational systems needed to ensure (and were federally mandated to demonstrate) the alignment between their content standards and standardized assessments.

The Council of Chief State School Officers issued a monograph that reviewed the three frameworks most commonly used by states and test developers for evaluating alignment: (1) the Webb model, (2) the surveys of enacted curriculum model, and (3) the Achieve model. Each of these frameworks involves expert review of standards and assessments that results in a series of indices characterizing the extent of match or overlap in state standards, assessments, and (in the case of the surveys of enacted curriculum) classroom instruction.

It is important to note that alignment is not a dichotomous variable (i.e., aligned vs. not aligned). Rather, the information produced by alignment studies can be used by policy makers, test developers, and educators to make adjustments to test content or instructional practices to improve the extent of alignment with the curricular expectations outlined in content standards.

Clearly, an insufficient degree of alignment (i.e., a significant mismatch between content standards and test content) can result in fragmentation and confusion for educators and students. For example, in the absence of alignment, how are educators to determine the skills and knowledge most important to teach? Moreover, if test content does not match what was taught to students in class, they may experience frustration and failure on required assessments. A lack of alignment between these elements also calls into question any inferences drawn from assessments. Without demonstrating adequate alignment between tests and content standards, it is impossible to determine whether a school’s success or failure in demonstrating adequate yearly progress can be attributed (at least in part) to the quality and content of classroom instruction.

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