From the abstract: "The increasing use of computerized adaptive tests (CATs) to collect information about students' academic growth or their response to academic interventions has led to a number of questions pertaining to the use of these measures for the purpose of progress monitoring. Star Reading is an example of a CAT-based assessment with considerable validity evidence to support its use for progress monitoring. However, additional validity evidence could be gathered to strengthen the use and interpretation of Star Reading data for progress monitoring. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to focus on three aspects of progress monitoring that will benefit Star Reading users. The specific research questions to be answered are: ( a ) how robust are the estimation methods in producing meaningful progress monitoring slopes in the presence of outliers; ( b ) what is the length of the time interval needed to use Star Reading for the purpose of progress monitoring; and ( c ) how many data points are needed to use Star Reading for the purpose of progress monitoring? The first research question was examined using a Monte Carlo simulation study. The second and third research questions were examined using real data from 6,396,145 students who took the Star Reading assessment during the 2014-2015 school year. Results suggest that the Theil-Sen estimator is the most robust estimator of student growth when using Star Reading. In addition, it appears that five data points and a progress monitoring window of approximately 20 weeks appear to be the minimum parameters for Star Reading to be used for the purpose of progress monitoring. Implications for practice include adapting the parameters for progress monitoring according to a student's current grade-level performance in reading."Citation: Bulut, O., & Cormier, D. C. (2018). Validity evidence for progress monitoring with Star Reading: Slope estimates, administration frequency, and number of data points. Frontiers in Education, 3.The full journal article is available online: <https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2018.00068>.

To develop Pathway to Proficiency reports for Alaska Star Reading Enterprise and Star Math Enterprise schools on the Renaissance Place hosted platform, we linked our scaled scores with the scaled scores from Alaska's achievement test. This technical report details the statistical method behind the process of linking Alaska's state test (PEAKS) and Star Reading and Star Math scaled scores.NOTE: The cut-score equivalents presented are preliminary estimates of the Star Reading and Star Math scores corresponding with each PEAKS performance level and will be refined as more data become available. To learn more about the next steps for the PEAKS linking study or contribute data to support this linking project, please contact the Research Department at research@renaissance.com. The full report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R53465>.

From the abstract: "STAR (Star Reading and Star Math), the products from a software company, Renaissance, are used for screening and progress-monitoring overtime. An alignment was completed by Renaissance between STAR and MCA, the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment, for grades 3 through 8. This research study will help contribute to the research of alignment between STAR and MCA. This research is predicting the expected STAR scores by season for student proficiency in MCA reading and math at 50% and 90% probability levels. The STAR scores needed to achieve 50% and 90% chance of MCA proficiency for each season will be calculated in this study. Overall, the STAR scores needed are increasing overtime. When a student is predicted to be non-proficient, this student will receive extra help. It is important to prevent the chances of predicting the wrong students to be MCA proficiency because they will not receive extra supports. For this purpose, a better probability cutoff (75%) will be suggested through this study."Citation: Cha, L. X. (2018). Alignment between STAR and MCA for grades 10 and 11.The Full Report is available online: <https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=school_district_data>.

From the executive summary: "The Blended Learning program at a large school district in the northeastern United States showed encouraging results with Freckle (formerly Front Row) in the 2017/2018 school year. It was shown, with statistical significance, that each day of using Freckle improved student MAP scores in both Math and ELA, and using Freckle for 50 or more days in Math and 40 or more days in ELA are projected to increase results by 12.5% and 11.3% respectively, while controlling for teacher or school."Citation: Freckle Education. (2018). Each day of Freckle usage leads to increased math and ELA test scores in a large district. San Francisco, CA: Author.The research study is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R63355>.

To develop Pathway to Proficiency reports for Arizona Star Reading and Star Math schools, we linked our scaled scores with the scaled scores from Arizona's achievement test. This technical report details the statistical method behind the process of linking Arizona's state test (ASSA formerly AzMERIT, AzM2) and Star Reading and Star Math scaled scores. This a only a name change for the 2022-2023 school year.The full report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R45738>.

As the first and only differentiation platform, Freckle empowers teachers to reach all students at their level. By making differentiation a reality, Freckle is proven to help students grow. The research summary is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R63351>.

From the abstract: "The purpose of the study was twofold. The first purpose of the study was to determine if a correlation existed between the Standardized Test for the Assessment of Reading (STAR), created and distributed by Renaissance, and the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) Achievement Test in Math and Reading for grade 3, grade 4, and grade 5. The second purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the percentile category of the STAR test and the TCAP test. The factor variable, identified as the percentile category, included three levels: Urgent Intervention, Intervention, and At/Beyond Benchmark. The dependent variable was the TCAP score. The study included 3rd-grade, 4th-grade, and 5th-grade students during the 2016-2017 school year who had taken the STAR reading and STAR math assessments and had taken the TCAP reading and TCAP math assessment.Based on the findings of this study, a strong correlational relationship does exist between the STAR and TCAP assessments. Overall, the strong correlation between the STAR and the TCAP were consistent across Math and Reading in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. Since the ANOVA was significant, a post hoc multiple comparisons was conducted to evaluate pairwise difference among the means of the three groups. Overall, the At/Beyond Benchmark group was significantly higher than both the Urgent Intervention group and the Intervention group in Math and Reading for 3rd grade, 4th grade, and 5th grade. There was not a significant difference between the Urgent Intervention group and the Intervention group, the exception was 5th grade math." Citation: Sampson, B. (2018). TCAP assessment in correlation with and as compared by STAR Assessment (Doctoral dissertation). East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN. The full report is available online: <https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4810&context=etd>.

This manual is a compendium of all relevant information about myIGDIs Profile of Preschool Learning and Development Readiness (ProLADR).Email research@renaissance.com to request a copy of the technical manual from the Renaissance Research Department.

To develop Pathway to Proficiency reports for Louisiana Star Reading Enterprise and Star Math Enterprise schools, we linked our scaled scores with the scaled scores from Louisiana's achievement test. This technical report details the statistical method behind the process of linking Louisiana's state test (LEAP 2025) and Star Reading and Star Math scaled scores. The full report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R44666>.

To develop Pathway to Proficiency reports for Oklahoma Star Reading Enterprise and Star Math Enterprise schools, we linked our scaled scores with the scaled scores from Oklahoma's achievement test. This technical report details the statistical method behind the process of linking Oklahoma's state test (OSTP) and Star Reading and Star Math scaled scores. The full report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R53774>.

From the abstract: "The impetus for this study was to determine how Accelerated Reader influences the reading attitudes of fourth grade students of varied reading proficiencies who had been exposed to Accelerated Reader since kindergarten. Interested in students' attitudes and motivation toward reading, I examined fourth grade students' reading motivation among two award winning Blue Ribbon Schools in East Tennessee, one of which used Accelerated Reader as the pathway to literacy success while the other did not. Comparisons between the two schools were made in order to determine if there were differences in students' attitudes and motivation toward reading. This explanatory mixed methods study incorporated both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Data were generated through the Motivation to Read Profile-Revised survey and semistructured individual interviews. The quantitative results indicated that in relation to the overall MRP-R survey, there were no statistically significant differences between students who participate in Accelerated Reader and those who do not. There was not a statistical difference between the AR school and the school without AR regarding survey questions aligned to selfconcept. There was a significant difference found on the subcategory of value of reading among the two schools. The AR school produced higher scores on the survey questions aligned to value of reading.After the initial quantitative analysis was conducted, interview questions were formulated to delve more deeply into these findings. When incorporating Explanatory Sequential Models, the qualitative phase follows the quantitative analysis to more fully elucidate the narrative behind the numbers generated. The results obtained from these differing methods of research produced findings that were sometimes contradictory. These contradictions were discovered through the semi-structured interview questions that were intended to further explicate the quantitative findings."Citation: Boone, L. S. (2017). Agony or ecstasy: A mixed methods study of the Accelerated Reader program and students' attitudes toward reading [Doctoral dissertation, University of Tennessee].The full report is available online: <https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5696&context=utk_graddiss>.

From the abstract: "Measuring the implementation fidelity (IF) or integrity of interventions is extremely important, since without it a positive or negative outcome cannot be interpreted. However, IF is actually measured relatively rarely. Direct and indirect methods of measurement have been used in the past, but tend to over-emphasize teacher behaviour. This paper focuses on student behaviour collated through computers - an interesting alternative. It deals with the reading of real books and reading achievement, for which variables a very large amount of computerised data was available on 852,295 students in 3243 schools. Reading achievement was measured pre-post with STAR Reading, a computerised itembanked adaptive norm-referenced test of reading comprehension. IF came from the Accelerated Reader (AR), which measures understanding of independent reading of real books the student has chosen by a quiz. Results showed higher IF was related to higher achievement. Neither IF nor reading achievement related to socio-economic status. Primary (elementary) schools had higher IF and achievement than secondary (high) schools. Females had higher IF and achievement than males. Students of higher reading ability implemented AR at a higher level, but did not gain in reading at a higher level. However, this computerised method of measuring IF with book reading showed limited reliability, no greater than methods emphasising teacher behaviour. In future, IF measures emphasising student response and those emphasising teacher behaviour need to be blended, although the latter will never generate the sample size of the former. This may be true of implementation fidelity in areas other than book reading."Citation: Topping, K. J. (2018). Implementation fidelity in computerised assessment of book reading. Computers & Education, 116, 176-190.

From the Executive Summary: "The goal of the Multidimensional Item Response Theory (MIRT) project for Renaissance is to increase the diagnostic reporting capacity for Renaissance assessments. The proposed methodology for meeting this goal was to evaluate the dimensionality of Renaissance Star items with respect to the learning progressions in math and reading. The learning progressions create testable hypotheses about the dimensional structure of the Star assessment items. This dimensionality was evaluated via MIRT models implied by the interrelated Skill Areas suggested by the learning progressions. Multidimensionality in the data was previously established by examining residual correlations from unidimensional Item Response Theory (IRT) calibrations of data. These residual correlations suggested that significant dimensionality was present in the data. After multidimensionality had been established, bi-factor MIRT models suggested by the Skill Area coding of items were fit to the data. These MIRT models showed significant improvement in model-data fit, thus validating the dimensionality hypotheses. Lastly, separate calibrations of items at different grade levels were linked to a common metric. This allows administration of items from across grade levels while still being able to produce scores on a constant scale. This report summarizes analyses for math and reading, gives insight into the meaning of Skill Areas, and demonstrates the added value of using MIRT for scaling."AUTHOR: William P. SkorupskiThe report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R61428>.