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The Development of IASEPBefore work was started on system development, a group of stakeholders was gathered to discuss the nature and direction of the alternate assessment process. This group consisted of 20 individuals representing special education, general education, parents of students with disabilities, administrators, teachers, university faculty, staff from the Great Lakes Area Regional Resource Center (GLARRC), special education support staff, and individuals with expertise in assistive technology. This group met on a monthly basis with the goal of reviewing existing materials in the area of alternate assessment, defining guiding principles based upon established theory, describing the population that would be served by the alternate assessment, and creating a model that would support system development. The stakeholder process was an important part of the creation of the alternate assessment because it provided a forum for philosophical exchange and for the diverse input that would ultimately yield a strong foundation for future work. Early in the stakeholders process, the committee gathered and reviewed existing documents from a variety of sources. In addition to these documents, the IASEP team considered empirical research in the areas of goal theory, motivation, and effective teaching. After reviewing this body of literature and the existing resources in the field of alternate assessment, the committee sought to establish a set of principles that would guide all subsequent development activities. These principles were identified, in part, from review of work from other states, in part from the consideration of learning and motivation theories, and, in part from the unique perspective of the Indiana group. Upon establishment of the guiding assumptions of the group, the committee began the process of developing an assessment model that would reflect these principles. Of great importance was a model that represented assessment on multiple dimensions (domains) in multiple settings with multiple sources of data. It was also critical that the assessment process would: a) be linked to state proficiencies ("what is important for one student is important for all"), b) be continuous in nature (reflecting discrete educational gains), c) reflect the highest standards possible for each student, and d) be directly linked to instruction and curriculum (to assure ongoing monitoring of the effectiveness of teaching and curricular materials). The committee reviewed suggested assessment
system domains from NCEO (Elliott,
Thurlow, & Ysseldyke 1996) and other states,
and agreed that the system should be represented by one academic
domain (Information Acquisition and Use) and four functional domains:
Social Adjustment, Personal Adjustment, Recreation and Leisure, and Vocational
Skills. Each domain would additionally consist of several subdomains reflecting
instructional/curricular areas within the domain. For example, the domain
of The development of the academic domain of the system was guided by the philosophy underlying NewYork's Learning Standards and Alternate Performance Indicators (New York Department of Education, 1997). This philosophy suggests the importance of establishing common standards for all students and supports links between the state proficiencies/content standards and the essential skills that would be included in the alternate assessment. Through these links, it would be possible to evaluate the progress of any student toward the attainment of skills and knowledge judged to be important for all Indiana students. The links with state proficiencies would also allow the integration of criterion-referenced data across the general assessment system and the alternate system, thus facilitating the aggregation of data for all students in the State. The Indiana Department of Education has developed proficiency standards in the areas of Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts. These documents were consulted extensively as the committee identified essential skills and alternate performance indicators for these skills. More flexibility was incorporated in the conceptualization of the functional domains of the system. Because there are no State standards in the areas of personal adjustment, social adjustment, recreation and leisure, and vocational experience, the committee consulted a variety of functional curricula and assessment systems. Additionally, several stakeholders brought personal teaching experience in the identification of essential functional skills and consulted with other teachers and support staff in the field. What resulted from this process was an extensive compilation of curricular-based essential skills covering development from infancy through adulthood. The essential skills in each functional domain were then organized into subdomains based upon the expert judgment of the committee. As the group was establishing the domain and subdomain structure of the assessment system, work was also being done to develop a model that would represent both the underlying IASEP principles and the domains that would be assessed. Again much discussion ensued around this model with the final product evolving after several stakeholder meetings. At the same time that the group was working on the identification of essential skills, a rubric was being developed that could be applied to measure the degree of attainment of a particular essential skill. The committee supported a modified version of the AUEN 3.0 (Frey, Burke, Jakworth, Lynch & Sumpter, 1996) rubric which could be used to evaluate the degree of independence that a student exhibited in performing a particular essential skill. Because the stakeholders had endorsed the growth toward independent living and learning as an underlying component of the alternate assessment system, the use of a rubric that reflected levels of support was a natural extension of the belief structure. The rubric has since been modified with input from Elliott & Kratochwill's work (1998) to add clarity and generalizability of the ratings.
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