Redefining AssessmentIt is easier if you start with the right tools

  • Learn how your students are progressing toward standards, performing relative to their peers, and what instructional activities can help close achievement gaps.
  • TerraNova 3 is the industry’s only NRT suite of products that features a combination of custom and off-the-shelf scoring and reporting services. Educators can mix and match reports and services to build an assessment program that meets their needs.
  • TerraNova 3, is a next-generation achievement test that provides a research-based test blueprint to closely align to today’s challenging content and performance standards. When used as part of your plan to enhance classroom instruction and improve student achievement, TerraNova 3, helps you empower all students to succeed.
  • TerraNova 3, is available for grades K through 12 for Reading, Language, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies.
  • Plus Tests are available to measure Word Analysis, Vocabulary, Language Mechanics, Spelling, and Mathematics Computation.
  • Lexile scores also available.

Improving Student Achievement

ALIGNMENT
Meets your assessment and reporting needs by offering a series of premium, norm-referenced achievement batteries and services that can be mixed and matched to deliver superior data for informing classroom instruction. It features a variety of item formats and aligns well to the Career and College Readiness objectives. In addition, it can provide customized reporting of student progress toward state standards and predict student performance on the state test with local research studies conducted by DRC.

RELEVANCE
Features engaging and contemporary item content that motivates students to perform. Furthermore, it delivers comparisons of student performance using a representative 2011 norm.

ACTIONABLE INFORMATION
Integrates testing and reporting options seamlessly and translates data into information your teachers and educational leaders can use to target instruction. It also provides premium reporting of student results and links to valuable instructional activities. Reports streamline complex information—using visual displays and familiar language to explain student results. Results are more meaningful, more actionable, and easier to interpret.

HIGHER ACHIEVEMENT
Contemporary, rigorous, and relevant content with rich graphics maintains interest and motivates students to do their best. With test items reflecting greater depths of knowledge, educators are able to evaluate students’ performance relative to the more challenging levels of thinking and problem solving skills required by your state standards.

FLEXIBILITY

Provides numerous test book options to suit your needs: Multiple Assessments, which combines selected-response and constructed-response items; Complete Battery, which uses selected-response items only; and Survey, for occasions when testing time is limited.

QUALITY
Test items reflect rigorous test-construction standards that ensure each item is valid and measures what is intended without embedded cultural bias. Furthermore, DRC research and development professionals ensure that the test measures a wide range of skills and proficiency levels.

TerraNova Advantages

Content That’s Engaging, Relevant, and Easy to Administer
From conceptualization to test blueprint, from content creation, through scoring and reporting, DRC invests the time it takes to develop a superior assessment. TerraNova 3, provides the most engaging and relevant content available today. This means you can test with confidence, knowing that the assessments will accurately measure your students’ learning.

Scoring and Reporting Services
TerraNova scoring and reporting engines provide significant advantages to help meet today’s challenging accountability standards. Our advanced scoring system and user specific reports provide educators, students, parents, and policy-makers with the most reliable, useful test results in the industry.

DRC uses the three-parameter logistical model to scale the selected-response items and the two-parameter partial credit model to scale the constructed-response items. The item discrimination is allowed to vary among items allowing the selected-response and constructed-response items to be scaled together. With the Rasch and partial credit models, discriminations must be equal for all items so the use of those models precludes the two types of items being scaled together.

Content Development
An integral part of the development process was documentation of content, using state curriculum frameworks and College and Career Readiness Standards. This procedure ensured that every item is sound in content and format and is appropriately targeted to the grades in which the associated skills are typically taught.

Next, items were tested with students and evaluated by teachers across the nation to measure the accuracy, validity, and grade-level appropriateness of the assessment content. This research provided actual classroom reaction from a large sample of educators. Finally, classroom teachers and other curriculum experts provided a comprehensive review.

Minimization of Bias

DRC developers gave careful attention to questions of ethnic, racial, gender, regional, and age bias. All materials were written and reviewed to meet DRC’s stringent editorial policies for equitable assessment. Educators from different parts of the country and different ethnic groups reviewed all potential items to identify assessment materials that might reflect possible bias in language, subject matter, or representation of people. The reviewers’ comments and suggestions were carefully considered during the revision and selection of items for the final tests.

Minimization of Speededness
Research over the past 25 years demonstrates that students experiencing time constraints may guess randomly or may be unable to demonstrate what they truly know and can do. Moreover, little useful instructional information can be obtained from the fact that a student did not finish a test, while a great deal can be learned from student responses to questions. TerraNova 3, is designed to minimize the effect of speededness and maximize the validity and instructional relevance of the assessment results. To ensure the most valid and useful measures of achievement possible, DRC set appropriate administration time limits that facilitate student completion.

Technical Standards of Highest Quality
In assessments, the stakes are high, and TerraNova 3, reflects diligent dedication to the highest technical standards. TerraNova 3, leverages the most current innovations in measurement methodology. The result is a valid, reliable assessment that meets rigorous psychometric standards. This ensures that results accurately measure and report your students’ performance relative to state standards and the latest national norms.