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ASSESSMENT AND DATA ANALYSIS

Pre and Post Tests


The pre and post-test for my Cold War Unit were exactly the same, consisting of ten
short answer questions. As I developed my individual lesson plans and day-to-day
assessments, I ensured that by the end of the unit all of these questions would be
answered, and that students would be able to critically analyze the importance of
the events which took place throughout the Cold War Era.
The average pre and post test scores were encouraging to me, as both classes
improved quite a lot in their scores across the board. I noticed that in general, most
students do not have a great deal of prior knowledge about the Cold War Era. There
are basic concepts that some students have learned previously, but for the most
part I noted several gaps in their general knowledge. Unfortunately, a notable
mistake many students made in the pre-test was to assume that the explanation for
the title of Cold War was due to the fact that weather in the places the war was
fought was cold! I was happy to see that this mistake was corrected on all the posttests. On the graphs above, I have included the individual and average scores for
both of my United States History classes. The delta improvement simply refers to
the individual improvement in the pre and post test scores for each individual.
The average score on the pre-test for my first period class was 5.1 (51%), which
shows that a lot of students did not have a great deal of understanding about some
of the concepts of the Cold War, but did have a general knowledge of who was
involved, why they fought, etc. The average score on the pre-test for my second
period class was 4.4 (44%), which is a fair amount lower than my first period. There
could be several reasons for this, but the most basic is simply that those in the
second period class had less prior knowledge about the Cold War. It should be noted
however, that if a student was absent for either the pre or post-test, I had to remove
both their scores for the graph. This may have had some effect on the scores for
either class, seeing as the lowest score in both classes was a two.
I was able to see significant growth in the average scores of students in both first
and second period. The final average for both classes on the post-test was very
similar. The average score for first period was 8.6 (86%), while the average for
second period was 8.7 (87%). Taking both the pre and post-tests into account, it
would seem that second periods scores improved the most. Overall, I was very
impressed with the delta improvement of both of my classes, first period improving
by an average of 35% and second period by an average of 44%. This would indicate
to me that my unit and lesson plans significantly improved the knowledge of the
students and, for the most part, accomplished the objectives I had in mind.
If we compare the improvement of both periods in conjunction with the average
scores of the unit exam, it seems to align fairly well with what was to be expected.
The pre and post-test questions were a good deal simpler than the unit test, and
there were a far greater number of questions on this test. The average unit test
score for period one was 76%, while for second period it was 77%. These results

seem to be fairly spot on with the post-test results I accumulated, given room for
the other variables I mentioned before.
According to the assessment data, it would seem that the Cold War Unit was
successful for the most part, and accomplished the majority of the objectives I
wished the students to meet. I did notice while looking through these scores that
many of the students who received lower scores on the post-test were those that
were absent for two or more days throughout the unit. It is challenging to be sure
that those students who miss class will be able to keep up to speed on those
concepts they need to know by the end of the unit. The students who scored high
on the pre-test also scored high on the post, but many did not see as high of an
improvement as other students. One of the goals of my future units and lessons will
be to further challenge those who already know a great deal of the information into
inquiring further into the aspects of the unit that most interest them. As for the
other students, I was really pleased with how much their scores improved by the
end of the unit. Although sometimes it is difficult to account for several variables
(absences, wording, and student learning styles) in pre and post-tests, I do believe
them to be a very useful tools for teachers who are looking to grow and improve
each unit after they have taught it. Constant reflection and review of lessons and
strategies by the teacher will help to consistently improve the learning process for
both the student and the teacher.

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