Electronic Test of Early Numeracy (eTEN Project)

Assessments provide teachers and parents with actionable data about children’s learning but are often time-consuming. 

Our partners at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed an adaptive numeracy assessment that takes minutes to complete and can provide educators with valuable information about their student’s number skills. The eTEN Assessment is a semi-adaptive test that assesses numeracy for children 3-8 years old. The assessment uses an engaging format with game-like activities and is available in English and Spanish. 

The eTEN Project is currently recruiting Prek-3rd grade classrooms to help test an electronic, easy-to-use assessment of numeracy skills. Your participation will help us to validate the assessment for wider use. Participation involves having our data collectors visit a sample of classrooms to conduct one-on-one math assessments with students who have parental consent.

Participating districts will be asked to support the project in the following ways:

• Identify PreK-3rd grade classrooms to participate in assessment;
• Help distribute and collect parent consent forms;
• Share demographic info for children with parent approval; and
• Identify a quiet space in the building where our staff can administer the eTEN assessment.

Participatory Timeline

Data collection is expected to take four to six weeks during the 2026-2027 school year. We anticipate collecting data from five to seven elementary schools in each participating district.

Eligibility Requirements

Students between the ages of 3 and 8 years of age who speak English (including students who speak both English and Spanish) are eligible to participate in this study.

Participation Benefits

As a thank you for participating, districts, principals, teachers, and families will each receive financial incentives:

• $1,000 for the district.
• $200 per principal.
• $50 per classroom teacher.
• $25 per participating family.

Teachers can also receive free access to the eTEN assessment app, individual assessment results for participating students, and a 2-hour professional development session tailored to your team.

Participation Expectations

District and school staff will be asked to help facilitate data collection by:

• Collecting parent consent forms.
• Sharing student demographic data - with consent.
• Providing a quiet space for our data collectors to conduct assessments.
• Supporting scheduling and coordination with data collectors.

Participating students will be asked to complete one-on-one assessments with a trained assessor on a iPad. We anticipate recruiting approximately 400 students per district, half of whom will complete one 20-minute assessment session using the eTEN. The remaining students will complete the eTEN, followed by up to two additional 20-minute sessions to collect repeated eTEN data (in both English and Spanish, for bilingual students) or related numeracy measures. 

Student assessment data will used to validate the eTEN, including establishing whether the test produces reliable scores over time and performs similarly to other early math assessments. Additionally, repeated assessment data from Spanish-English bilingual students will demonstrate whether the test performs similarly across translated versions.