Content Proximity Tests

Product or Programme · All products and programmes
Evidence · 5 claims (4 for, 1 mixed) · 3 studies (2 design, 1 causal), q2 · 1 of 3 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description

Content Proximity Tests are NWEA's MAP Growth assessment variant that uses an adaptive item-selection algorithm to give greater preference to on-grade content while retaining off-grade adaptivity.

Components

• Content Proximity MAP Growth tests: Content Proximity tests are an evolution of MAP Growth assessments designed by NWEA to improve content validity while retaining off-grade adaptivity. "Content Proximity Tests were designed to give greater preference to on-grade items and have different numbers of items per instructional area when necessary." Math tests emphasize mathematics Aspects of Rigor and reading tests include more reading passages at upper grade levels. The tests continue to adapt off grade to deliver suitable difficulty, but align test events more closely with grade-level content for students performing typically for their grade, intended to improve connections to curriculum materials and correlations with end-of-yea (J. Patrick Meyer et al. (2023))

Claims

• The Content Proximity spring 2022 pilot study examined validity, reliability, and test score comparability of MAP Growth assessments using the new item-selection algorithm [+W]
• Content Proximity math scores were consistently higher than traditional MAP Growth math scores, with effects ranging from negligible to small by grade [+W]
• Content Proximity pilot tests contained significantly more on-grade items and made better use of adjacent-grade items than traditional MAP Growth tests [+W]
• Growth-norms predictions showed larger RMSDs for pilot math scores but similar predictions for reading [~W]
• The adaptive algorithm's item selection produces a significantly lower SEM than fixed-form tests [+W]

Related Products and Programmes

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Key Sources

• J. Patrick Meyer, Ann Hu, Sylvia Li. (2023). Content Proximity Spring 2022 Pilot Study Research Brief. Psychometric Solutions, NWEA. https://www.nwea.org/research/publication/content-proximity-spring-2022-pilot-study-research-report/

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	product
id	content-proximity-tests
title	Content Proximity Tests
description	Content Proximity Tests are NWEA's MAP Growth assessment variant that uses an adaptive item-selection algorithm to give greater preference to on-grade content while retaining off-grade adaptivity.
status	review
moved_from	element/content-proximity-map-growth-tests
product_kind	assessment
generated	by process:sweep-kinds on 2026-10-10
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	1 — j-patrick-meyer-2023

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