Do you have any information about practice effect?

Because the nature of the AIMSweb Probes is to be consistent across the set, the question of practice effect inevitably pops up several times each semester. The term practice effect refers to the phenomenon of improved performance resulting from repeated exposure to the same stimuli, such as repeated assessment with the same instrument or similar instruments, rather than as the result of successful intervention or natural development as the subject matures. In traditional assessments, it is recommended to avoid retesting a subject on the same instrument (or similar instruments) for a period of approximately 6 months.

Progress-monitoring tools as designed in a curriculum-based measurement such as the AIMSweb, require the use of parallel testing material (probes) in order to accurately capture a student’s improvement, or lack thereof, over a set period of time. In a study performed by Ardoin and Christ (2008) using AIMSweb, it was found that there was no evidence of a practice effect across the use of the probes and benchmarks from different probe sets. Instead, the study supported the theory that the use of inconsistent material diminishes the efficacy of track progress over time. In short, consistency across probes and benchmarks allows for a more accurate picture of a student’s abilities to emerge (Ardoin & Christ, 2008).