FOLLOWING your recent news item (TES, May 12) I feel compelled to write to you regarding the reliability and validity of the Performance Indicators in Primary School baseline assessment.
Nearly two years ago we put a notice in The TES stating that the PIPS baseline assessment was the most reliable and valid.
We believe this to be true but there are another 90 baselines in England and we were unable to prove the truth of the statement since the reliability and validity of many are not known.
Every year we reassess a epresentative sample of pupils whom the teachers have already assessed. This gives us reliability figures over 0.9. We have also shown that the PIPS baseline has good predictive validity (up to 0.7 for Year 2). Is there any other baseline with better figures?
Finally, in its ruling (February 1999) the Advertising Standards Authority itself stated that “the PIPS project was the scheme that was most evidently underpinned by research”.
Professor Peter Tymms
Director of the PIPS project
Durham University
