The Maine DOE is recruiting schools to serve as field testing sites to administer the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) Science Inquiry Tasks in grades 5, 8 and 11. The field tests give students the opportunity to engage with science content in non-traditional assessments and students are asked to provide feedback about their experience.
This year the field tests will occur between Nov. 3 and Nov. 21. In the NECAP, science assessment inquiry tasks can either be “hands on” or a traditional paper-and-pencil test session. “Hands on” means that students work in pairs to conduct an experiment and record their data before responding independently to test questions. For the field tests this fall, the inquiry task is “hands on,” for grade 5 and grade 8 and the grade 11 task is a paper-and-pencil test. In general, the tasks are always “hands on” at grade 5 and can either be a “hands on” or paper-and-pencil test at grade 8 depending on the task. The grade 11 inquiry tasks are always a paper-and-pencil test.
Schools will receive $5 per completed test. For more information about the administration of the NECAP assessment, please click here. To participate in the field test, please contact Stephanie Means at Measured Progress at means.stephanie@measuredprogress.org or 800-431-8901 ext. 2505.