ICTS Program Overview

2008–2009
about the icts

program overview

Testing has been required of candidates seeking Illinois teaching, school service personnel, and administrative certificates since 1988. Legislation enacted at that time, Section 21-1a of the School Code of Illinois, established a testing program as part of the state’s certification requirements. Subsequent legislation and the adoption of administrative rules by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) provided additional requirements and information regarding the specific tests required of certification candidates, as well as when the tests must be taken and who must take the tests.

Under the direction of ISBE, the Illinois Certification Testing System (ICTS) was custom designed and developed by the Evaluation Systems group of Pearson to meet Illinois needs and requirements relating to the preparation and certification of educators.

The ICTS tests are criterion referenced and objective based. A criterion-referenced test is designed to measure a candidate’s knowledge and skills in relation to an established standard rather than in relation to the performance of other candidates. The explicit purpose of these tests is to help identify, for certification purposes, candidates who have demonstrated the level of knowledge required to perform satisfactorily in their fields of specialization. The language proficiency tests assess knowledge of the language needed by a bilingual teacher to commu nicate effectively in everyday school settings.

All the test objectives and standards developed for the ICTS were reviewed by committees of Illinois educators for relevance to the field of teaching and alignment with state and national standards. A content validation survey was then conducted in each field using practicing Illinois educators and teacher educators, who were selected by random sample. Each survey participant reviewed the objectives/standards in his or her field to ensure that only objectives/standards that are important to the job and that are used in Illinois classrooms were selected for testing. Test questions matched to each objective/standard were developed on the basis of textbooks, Illinois curriculum guides, and teacher education and certification standards. These questions were developed in consultation with committees of Illinois educators, teacher educators, and other content specialists. Test questions are field-tested and then continually reviewed to ensure content is current and accurate. All tests within the ICTS periodically undergo a comprehensive review to ensure that the tests accurately reflect the minimum content knowledge and basic skills required of the Illinois public school educator. Copies of the test objectives/standards for all test fields are available by selecting "Test Frameworks" on the ICTS Web site.

Description of the Tests

The ICTS includes the following categories of tests. See "Test Selection" for a complete list of tests. For more detailed information about a specific test, refer to the study guide for that test (see "Preparing for the Tests").

Test Type	Test Description
Basic Skills test	The Basic Skills test consists of 125 multiple-choice questions in reading comprehension, language arts (grammar and writing), and mathematics and a constructed-response writing assignment.
Assessment of Professional Teaching (APT) tests	The APT tests assess candidates on professional and pedagogical knowledge and skills. Each APT test consists of 120 multiple-choice questions and 2 constructed-response assignments. There are four levels of the APT: Birth to Grade 3, Grades K–9, Grades 6–12, and Grades K–12.
Content-area tests	Each content-area test (except the Special Education General Curriculum Test and foreign language content-area tests; see below) consists of 125 multiple-choice questions. The Special Education General Curriculum Test consists of 65 multiple-choice questions.
Foreign language content-area tests	The Foreign Language: French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Russian, and Spanish tests each consist of 100 multiple-choice questions and 2 constructed-response assignments. The Foreign Language: Arabic, Chinese (Cantonese), Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, and Korean tests each consist of 7 constructed-response assignments and do not include multiple-choice questions.
Learning Behavior Specialist II (LBS II) tests	Each LBS II test consists of 6 constructed-response assignments, including 3 stand-alone constructed-response assignments and 3 constructed-response assignments associated with a single case study.
Tests for removal of a Learning Behavior Specialist I (LBS I) Limitation only	The tests for removal of an LBS I Limitation (i.e., Educable Mentally Handicapped, Learning Disabilities, Physically Handicapped, Social/Emotional Disorders, and Trainable Mentally Handicapped) each consist of 125 multiple-choice questions.
Language proficiency tests for the Transitional Bilingual Certificate	The English Language Proficiency (ELP) test and the Target Language Proficiency (TLP)—Spanish test each consist of 55 multiple-choice questions and 2 constructed-response assignments. The TLP tests for languages other than Spanish each consist of 4 constructed-response assignments.

All ICTS tests may include questions that will not count toward candidates’ scores. These questions are placed on the test in order to collect information about how well they perform under actual testing conditions.

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