Missouri Alliance for Arts Education Report on the

Fine Arts Component of the Missouri Assessment Program

 The Missouri Alliance for Arts Education supports inclusion in MSIP 5  of the Fine Arts component of the Missouri Assessment Program (FA MAP), developed by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and CTB/McGraw-Hill. Dr. Douglas Reeves, in his presentation to the Missouri State Board of Education in January, said “It is not a contradiction to demand proficiency and value the arts.” When asked if standardizing assessment hurts creativity, he replied “There are still fundamentals that visual artists and musicians need to have. We should insist upon assessing the arts.”

In 2011 the MAAE, with assistance from the Missouri School Boards’ Association, is piloting a web-based version of the Fine Arts MAP in four school districts. The test will be administered via a secure website. Students will view the test items on computer screens or Smartboards in their classrooms.

Deborah Fisher, MAAE Executive Director, was the DESE Fine Arts Consultant from 2000-2006. At DESE Fisher worked with CTB/McGraw-Hill through the following phases of assessment development and implementation:

1) analysis of the field-tested items,

2) development of the three final forms of the assessment,

3) first voluntary implementation,

4) scoring session by Missouri teachers, and the  

5) standard-setting process to determine achievement levels. 

Fisher provides this overview of the Fine Arts MAP using first-hand knowledge of the assessment gained during her tenure at DESE.

What Is the Fine Arts MAP? 

The purpose of the Fine Arts MAP was to provide assessment data to schools to improve fine arts instruction. It is important to note that during the development of the Grade-Level Expectations, the writing teams aligned the GLEs to the content in the fifth-grade arts assessment. 

As DESE convened fine arts teachers throughout the development of the Fine Arts MAP, it was determined that Missouri would develop a stimulus/response assessment.  This means that student prompts, in the form of audio and video stimuli, are the basis for many of the questions. An arts-assessment consultant cautioned Missouri not to follow the Kentucky model that asks students to recall the names and dates of composers and artists. Although it was more expensive to develop audio and video prompts, Missouri made the decision to invest in a comprehensive arts assessment unlike any other in the nation.

During the assessment, fifth-grade students view artwork, observe and hear musicians performing vocal and instrumental music, watch actors portray characters in a scene, and observe dancers in performance. Students then provide responses to questions that are printed, either on the screen or in a test booklet. An interesting difference in the Fine Arts MAP and other MAP assessments is that a narrator reads the questions to the students and repeats the questions several times. Hearing the questions read provides equity by enabling students who have below grade-level reading skills to answer the questions. 

The first session of the test includes 40 selected-response (multiple-choice) items. The second session consists of five constructed-response items. Students are presented the video and/or audio stimulus and then construct, or write, an answer to the question that is, once again, read several times. 

 The Fine Arts MAP is more than a paper/pencil test. Appropriate responses are dependent upon students viewing and listening to the stimuli. With current technology, students may complete the test electronically if the state chooses to eliminate the printed test booklets. Although test booklets will be used during the first MAAE pilot, a goal of the Alliance is to develop a larger, second pilot in 2012 in which student responses are submitted electronically.  

Examples of Questions from the Fine Arts MAP:

To understand how the arts can be assessed, it is helpful to see the types of questions that were developed by Missouri teachers to assess principles and elements, the historical and cultural aspects of the arts, and the interrelationships of the arts disciplines.  In the following examples, the prompt and, in most cases, the four answer choices are not included in order to preserve the validity of the test items.

Pros and Cons of the Fine Arts MAP:

Pro: The Fine Arts MAP assesses skills in nonfiction writing, a key component of the Common Core Standards and an avenue to student achievement.

According to Dr. Reeves, there is a connection between non-fiction writing and students’ literacy skills. The Fine Arts MAP encourages teachers to develop students’ skills in nonfiction writing by preparing them to create constructed responses. Through a state-required fine arts assessment that includes non-fiction writing, Missouri students will be better prepared to meet the Common Core Standards.

Pro: The Fine Arts MAP is a comprehensive arts assessment that measures student learning in all four arts disciplines: music, visual art, theatre and dance.

Although theatre and dance classes are not offered in many elementary schools, most music teachers teach the performing arts, including GLEs related to theatre and dance, in their classes. This system worked well since a high percentage of students correctly answered the theatre and dance questions.     DESE created the Assessment Annotations, a document that provided a list of what was “fair game” on the test. The Assessment Annotations indicated what content could be assessed.     

Pro: A fine arts assessment delivered via the internet will utilize 21^st century workforce skills and will cost less to administer.

Teachers will prepare students to use technology to select answers and provide constructed responses in web-based assessments.

 An assessment administered via the internet greatly reduces the cost to implement. The MAAE is piloting a web-version of the assessment and is compiling information about the efficacy of teacher scoring of the constructed-response items and other cost-cutting measures.

Con: The Fine Arts MAP does not include a performance-based assessment component.

Four states implement performance-based arts assessments. Although there are validity and reliability concerns with locally-developed performance tasks, performance assessments would provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate proficiency in the production and performance of the arts, FA 1 in the Show-Me Standards document.  

To improve the validity and reliability of performance-based assessments, Missouri may want to implement a stimulus-response assessment like the current FA MAP and a performance-based system in which school districts choose from a bank of state-developed performance tasks with standardized scoring guides.   In several states, teachers have developed performance tasks to be considered for inclusion in the bank of state tasks.   The assessments are reviewed by the DOE and are piloted in multiple schools before they are included in the bank of tasks. This process helps reduce the cost of developing performance-based assessments and improves the validity and reliability of the system.

History of Implementation:

The Fine Arts MAP was first piloted by DESE and CTB/McGraw-Hill in 1999 and field-tested in 2000.   Analysis of the test data determined the most valid and reliable items to include in the final forms. A bias review including educators from across the state was held prior to selecting the final form. Likewise, an accessibility review was conducted to ensure students with disabilities could access the test.  In 2001, the first voluntary implementation was administered. DESE personnel and Missouri fine arts teachers refined the constructed-response scoring guide and scored a portion of the tests.

How other States are Assessing Fine Arts:

Although the Arts Education Partnership website (http://www.aep-arts.org/) reports that fourteen states have a requirement for an arts assessment, the MAAE could corroborate required assessments in only four states. Three of the ten remaining states replied to MAAE’s inquiry about the information on the AEP website and those states indicated they do not have required fine arts assessments. No evidence was found on the remaining seven states’ department of education websites regarding fine arts assessments. It is evident that Missouri is the only state to have developed a stimulus/response fine arts assessment. The following chart indicates what other states are doing to assess the arts:   

In Conclusion: