Classwide Decision-Making Strategies with Curriculum-Based Measurement

Research indicates the potential for curriculum-based measurement (CBM) to help special educators design more effective instructional programs and effect better student achievement. Nevertheless, few studies have investigated the capacity of general educators to employ this methodology to similar outcomes within regular education settings. One possible explanation for the absence of experimental efficacy trials within general education is that the individual student decision-making focus of CBM requires teachers to make different instructional changes for different students at different times; this can be logistically difficult with large numbers of students. Over the past 3 years, we have addressed this problem by developing innovative CBM decision-making strategies that focus on the class rather than on individuals. In this article, we describe these CBM decision-making strategies in the area of mathematics operations and summarize a series of studies exploring the efficacy of these methods within general education. Directions for additional research and development also are discussed.