NWEA research report examining the impacts of the pandemic’s disruptions to learning and the status of academic recovery. This report features data from the 2023-24 academic year and underscores that unfinished learning continues to be a challenge due to lower achievement gains compared to pre-pandemic trends. This report is part of series tracking the on-going impacts.

New research shows progress toward academic recovery stalled in 2022-23. This research brief covers data from 6.7 million US students examining academic gains relative to pre-pandemic years as well as tracking the gap in achievement between COVID year student groups compared to their pre-pandemic peers.

This executive summary outlines results from the Content Proximity spring 2022 pilot study, including information on the validity, reliability, and test score comparability of MAP Growth assessments that leverage this new item-selection algorithm.

The purpose of this research report is to provide detailed information about updates to the MAP Growth item-selection algorithm. This brief includes results from the Content Proximity pilot study, including information on the validity, reliability, and test score comparability of MAP Growth assessments that leverage this new item-selection algorithm.

This report documents the procedure used to produce the achievement and growth user norms for a series of the course-specific MAP® Growth™ subject tests, including Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Integrated Math I, Integrated Math II, Integrated Math III, and Biology/Life Science. Among these tests, Integrated Math I, Integrated Math II, Integrated Math III, and Biology/Life Science were the first time to have their norms available. The remaining tests, i.e., Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2, had their norms updated including receiving more between-term growth norms by using more recent test events. Procedure for norm sample selection and a model-based approach using the multivariate true score model (Thum & He, 2019) that factors out known imprecision of scores to generate the norms are also provided in detail, along with the snapshots of the achievement and growth norms for each test.

The MAP Growth theory of action describes key features of MAP Growth and its position in a comprehensive assessment system.

This report documents the results of an item parameter drift study designed to check the parameter stability of MAP Growth items.