psy 2201 ch 6 educ assmt

7/27/2019 Psy 2201 Ch 6 Educ Assmt

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Chapter 6:

Assessment of Educational AbilitySurvey Battery

Diagnostic

Readiness

Cognitive Ability Tests



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Defining Assessment of

Educational Ability

Such assessment tools are used in the following ways:

To determine if students are learning.

To assess how well a class, grade, school, school

system, or state is learning content knowledge, To assist in the determination of learning problems.

To assist in the determination of giftedness.

To help determine if a child is ready to move to thenext grade level.

To help determine readiness and placement incollege and graduate school.



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Tests of Educational Ability(See Underlined Tests Below)

TESTS IN THE COGNITIVE DOMAIN

ASSESSMENT OF ABILITY

(All of What One Can Do)

ACHIEVEMENT TESTING APTITUDE TESTING

(Have Learned) (Capable of Learning)

Survey Diagnostic Readiness Intelligence Cognitive Special Multiple

Battery Tests Tests Tests Ability Aptitude Aptitude



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Defining Tests of Educational Ability

Survey Battery Tests : Measure broad content areas.Often used to assess progress in school.

Diagnostic Tests: Assess problem areas of learning(e.g., learning disabilities).

Readiness Tests: Measure readiness for movingahead in school. Often readiness to enter First grade.

Cognitive Abilities Tests: Often based on what haslearned in school. Measure broad range of cognitiveability. Useful in making predictions (e.g., success in

school or in college).



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Survey Battery Achievement Testing

Increasingly important as the result of:

Standards of Learning Tests Given by

States No Child Left Behind

See Box 6.1, p. 109



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Survey Battery Achievement Testing

Helpful in following ways:

Can help a student, his or her parents, and

his or her teachers, identify strengths andweaknesses

Classroom, school, or school system profilereports, help teachers, principals,administrators, and the public see howstudents are doing at all these levels.



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Types of Survey Battery Achievement Tests:Stanford Achievement Test (SAT10)

Most sub-tests in the mid .80s to low .90susing KR-20 internal consistency estimates.

Reliability estimates fell for the open-endedsections to mid .50 through the .80s.

Sound content, criterion, and constructvalidity.

Offers Individual Profile Sheets, ClassGrouping Sheets, Grade Grouping Sheets,and School System Grouping Sheets. See Figures 6.2 and 6.3, pp. 110 and 11.



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Types of Survey Battery Achievement Tests:Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS)

One of the oldest and best-known achievement tests

―M‖ version for grades K through 8

Sub-tests depending on the grade level: language,reading, vocabulary, listening, word analysis, math,social studies, science and writing assessment.

Criticized the test for not measuring ―higher-orderthinking‖

Reliability of most subtests in the .80s to .90s andstrong content validity.



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Types of Survey Battery AchievementTests: Metropolitan (8th ed.)

K-12 for a broad range of subjects such asreading, language arts, mathematics, science,and social studies.

Multiple choice questions and open-endeditems, which are scored a 0 to 3

Some criticism: data too heavily weighted forrural classrooms and under represents urbanclassrooms

Good reliability and validity



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Diagnostic Testing

Used to assess problems in learning

PL 94-142 and IDEIA have made these types oftests crucial

Laws assert that individuals (age 2 – 21) who aresuspected of having a disability that interferes withlearning has right to be tested at school system’sexpense

Used in development of IEP Students with a disability have the right to an

education within the least restrictive environment .



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Types of Diagnostic Tests:Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT)

Good screening test for learning problems. Developedto assess basic reading, spelling, and arithmetic skills.

Attempts to eliminate effects of comprehension in

determining a learning disability.

Individual is asked, one-on-one by the examiner, to ―read‖ (pronounce) words, to spell words, and tofigure out a number of math problems.

For ages 5 – 75.

Internal consistency reliability in .90s.

Rationale for content validity and evidence ofconstruct and criterion-related validity.



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Types of Diagnostic Tests: Key-math,Peabody Individual Achievement test

Key Math Diagnostic Test

Assesses students’ understanding of basic mathematicsand provides diagnostic information to teachers.

Comprehensive test for learning problems in math.

Takes 35-50 minutes to take.

Reliabilities: 80s and .90s

Evidence of content and construct validity.

Peabody Individual Achievement Test

Provides broad academic screening for children K – 12

Median reliability estimates: .94

Shows content, construct, and criterion-related validity

Other Diagnostic Tests: Wechsler Individual AchievementTest – Second Edition (WIAT-II), Woodcock-Johnson.



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Readiness Testing

Sometimes helpful in deciding whether a childis ―ready‖ to move onto next level (usuallykindergarten or first grade).

Some problems:

Children’s cognitive functioning changes rapidly atyoung ages.

Cross-cultural biases exist in some of these tests. When English is not first language children will

tend not to do as well on these tests.



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Types of Readiness Tests: MetropolitanReadiness Test, sixth edition (MRT6)

Assesses beginning educational skillsfor preschoolers, kindergarteners,

and first graders. Composite reliability estimates: .90s

Subtest reliability: .53 through .80s

Some question its validity



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Types of Diagnostic Tests:

Gesell School Readiness Test

Assesses personal and social skills, neurological andmotor growth, language development, and adaptivebehavior.

Arnold Gesell spent years examining the normaldevelopment

As far as Gesell was concerned, ―achievement‖ wasmore than how one scores on a reading or math test.

Questionable Reliability and Validity

Read box 6.4, p. 118



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Types of Diagnostic Tests:

Kindergarten Readiness Test

Used to determine if a child is ready tobegin kindergarten.

Covers Reasoning, Language, Auditoryand Visual Attention, Numbers, FineMotor Skills, and several other cognitive

and sensory-perception areas.Questionable reliability and validity.



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Cognitive Ability Tests

Assesses what an individual is capable of doing

Should not be confused with intelligence tests.

Often look more like achievement tests —butmeasure broad content areas.

Good for identifying students not succeeding inschool due to:

learning disabilities Motivation

problems at home or school

self-esteem issues.



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Cognitive Ability Tests:The Cognitive Ability Test

Constructed with two models of intelligence: Vernon’s hierarchy of abilities

Cattell’s fluid and crystallized abilities.

Provides verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal reasoningabilities scores. Composite score also calculated

Uses standard score with mean of 100 and standarddeviation of 16, percentile ranks, and stanines

Good reliability estimates: .80s & .90s

Offers rationale for content validity but difficult to defendthis type of test as it is used to measure future. Goodconcurrent validity.



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Types of Cognitive Ability Tests:Otis-Lennon School Ability Test

K – 12

Verbal, quantitative, and non-verbal sections

Raw scores converted to stanines, percentilerank, a standard score called the schoolability index, and normal curve equivalents(NCEs) by age or grade.

Questionable content validity. Although fairconcurrent validity and fairly good reliability.



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Types of Cognitive Ability Tests:College Admissions Exams

ACT:

Most Popular

Designed to assess educational development and

ability to complete college level work Covers four skill areas, including: English, math,

reading, and science.

Scores range from 1 – 36, (M = 18, SD = 5).

Mean for college bound students about 21 Composite score has reliability estimate of .96

Predictive validity: is .43 with first year GPA.



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SAT Areas assessed: critical reading, mathematics, and

writing, which includes an essay. All three sections range from 200 to 800. Can compare

today’s means to past group which mean was set at500.

Can look at a percentile score which comparesexaminee to students who took the test within pastthree years.

On writing section multiple choice subscore between 20 and 80 writing subscore between 2 and 12 based on

written essay evaluated by two or three readers. Predictive validity correlations for combined math and

verbal scores range from .44 to .61 as predictor ofcollege grades.



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GRE General Test:

Three sections: verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, andanalytical writing.

Verbal and quantitative scores range: 200-800. Has floating

mean and SD. Percentiles compare students within recentyears.

For analytical writing. Scores ranked from 0 to 6 by twoevaluators (Mean has been 4.2, SD: 1.0).

GRE Subject Tests.

Biochemistry, cell and molecular biology; biology; chemistry;computer science; literature in English, mathematics; physics;and psychology.

Scored like General Test

Correlations with grad grades: .27 and .51; .43 to .58 whencombined with undergraduate grades.



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Miller Analogy Test: 120 analogies measure analytical abilities through assessing

one’s capability of finding relationships between ideas,general knowledge, and word fluency.

Mixed predictive validity (one study, .23 with grad GPA)

LSAT: Assesses acquired reading and verbal reasoning skills

Predictive validity estimates average at .39, and whencombined with GPA, increase to .50

MCAT: Assesses physical sciences, biological sciences, verbal

reasoning, and a writing sample.

Predictive validity estimates range from .62 to .65 for thefirst two years of medical school.



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The Role of Helpers in the

Assessment of Educational Ability

School counselors, school psychologists, learning disabilitiesspecialists, and school social workers are members of theschool’s special education team.

School psychologists and learning disability specialists aretesting experts who assess for learning problems.

Clinical and counseling psychologists do additional assessmentsor to act as a second opinion to the school’s assessment.

School counselors often only testing expert who is permanently

house in school. Can consult with teacher and disaggregate datato find students with learning problems.

Licensed professionals often need to consult with schools abouttheir clients.



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Final Thoughts on Assessment of Educational Ability

Down side: Teachers forced to teach to tests —not allowed to be creative.

Testing leads to labeling.

Some tests (e.g., readiness tests and cognitive ability tests) area mechanism for majority children to move ahead and keep

minority children down. Testing causes competitions and peer pressure

Up side: Tests allow us to identify children, classrooms, schools, and

schools systems, which are performing poorly.

Testing allows us to identify children with learning problems. Testing allows a child to be accurately placed in grade level.

Testing helps children identify what they are good at and helpsto identify weak areas they can focus upon

psy 2201 ch 6 educ assmt

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