Considerations When Selecting CBMmath Process for Progress Monitoring

Each of the three FastBridge™ CBMmath measures has unique features that need to be considered when selecting the best progress measure for a specific student.  This article will review the key features, intended uses, and expected growth rates for CBMmath Process.

Features

CBMmath Process is a paper and pencil timed assessment of the required steps used to solve multi-digit and multi-step math problems, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with and without decimals. The purpose of CBMmath Process is to document a student’s procedures when solving these types of problems.  Here is a table summarizing the CBMmath Process features.

In order to administer the CBMmath Process assessment, the teacher must first download and print the student and teacher forms.  These are found in the Training & Resources section of the website.  To administer the assessment, the teacher reads the directions out loud to one or more students, starts a timer, and directs the students to begin.

The score reported on FastBridge™ reports is adjusted from the student’s raw score and is the number of correct answers in 10 minutes.  The prorated 10-minute score is used because it allows comparison with similar assessments from other publishers. CBMmath Process is scored by the teacher using a downloaded scoring key. There are two different scoring methods. Rapid Scoring is used for screening and Error Analysis is used for Progress Monitoring. To learn how to score CBMmath Process, complete the online course and consult the Scoring Guide.

Intended Uses

CBMmath Process is designed to be used for both universal screening and for progress monitoring.

Screening: The content in CBMmath Process matches the skills typically taught in grades 2 through 6. It can be used to screen all students in those grades.

Progress Monitoring: CBMmath Process can also be used to monitor progress of students in any grade who are participating in interventions to improve their skills for solving multi-digit and multi-step math problems.  Although basic math facts are often taught in grades 2 through 6, not all students master them by the end of sixth grade. When students in grades 7 and higher need to improve their multi-digit and multi-step math problem-solving skills, CBMmath Process is the best progress measure to use. In order to use CBMmath Process with students in grades 7 and higher, the FastBridge™ district manager needs to set up access to CBMmath Process for those grade levels. In addition the school manager needs to activate teacher access to CBMmath Process for scoring the forms of those students who will use it.

There are multiple different forms for progress monitoring with CBMmath Process.  These are different from the screening form which is a general outcome measure (GOM).  The other forms include specific types of problems as shown in the following table. There are both single skill and multiple skill forms. For the single skills, the Common Core State Standard addressed by the form is shown. The forms listed below are known as mastery measures because they focus on very specific skills that a student needs to master.

After determining what type of math process intervention a student needs, the teacher can select which type of CBMmath Process progress measure to use. In addition to the above mastery measures, there are general outcome measure (GOM) versions of CBMmath Process for each level.  The level-specific GOM versions include all of the types of problems represented at each level. GOM versions can be helpful in documenting whether a student has maintained mastery of previously learned skills.  It is important to remember that if CBMmath Process is also used for universal screening, those students who use it for progress monitoring will complete the GOM version at the next screening interval.

Growth Rates

There are two ways to evaluate whether a student’s progress toward a goal is likely to result in reaching the goal.  One way is to look at the student’s progress scores and see how close they are to the goal.  The other is to examine the student’s growth over time. On some FastBridge™ reports, growth is referred to as rate of improvement (ROI).  National norms provide information about expected scores and growth. There are growth tables for all FastBridge™ assessments and these can be found in the Training & Resources section of the website. The expected growth values are found in the Norms tables for each grade. All norms and growth values (ROI) are calculated based on screening scores because their purpose is to show typical and expected performance. It would be very difficult to calculate norms and growth from progress data because only a small subset of students complete progress assessments. Additionally, the students who complete progress measures are those who are struggling with the skill and their progress (e.g., ROI) might not be typical of other students.  Here is an example of the norms and growth table for CBMmath Process for grade 4. The growth numbers are expressed in weekly units.

Information about the three different types of growth calculations can be found in the article Growth Score Explanation.

Growth data are important for two reasons. First they provide a basis for comparing an individual student’s growth to see if it is typical or atypical. Such information can support decisions about continuing or changing math interventions.  Second, growth data provide information about a measure’s sensitivity to change over time. The most helpful progress measures are those that will reveal meaningful improvements in students’ skills as a result of intervention. The amount of change that can be expected is one way to consider a measure’s sensitivity to change. The three FastBridge™ CBMmath measures vary in the amount of typical and expected growth over time.

CBMmath Process is highly sensitive to student growth.  Using the second grade norms shown above and selecting the scores at the 50th percentile, we see that typical growth on this assessment went from 20 in the fall, to 41 in the winter, and 62 in the spring.  It is normal for growth rates to vary during different times of the school year based on when certain skills are taught. Based on these norms we could expect an average fourth grader to gain 21 points on CBMmath Process from the fall to winter. These data about typical growth help teachers to analyze a specific student’s growth and determine if an intervention is resulting in the desired effects.