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Chapter 6: Assessment of Educational Ability

Survey 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

the next grade level. To help determine readiness and placement in

college 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 moving ahead in school. Often readiness to enter First grade.

Cognitive Abilities Tests: Often based on what has learned in school. Measure broad range of cognitive ability. 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 and weaknesses

Classroom, school, or school system profile reports, help teachers, principals, administrators, and the public see how students 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 .90s using KR-20 internal consistency estimates.Reliability estimates fell for the open-ended sections to mid .50 through the .80s.Sound content, criterion, and construct validity.Offers Individual Profile Sheets, Class Grouping 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 8Sub-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-order thinking” Reliability of most subtests in the .80s to .90s and strong content validity.

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Types of Survey Battery Achievement Tests: Metropolitan

(8th ed.)

K-12 for a broad range of subjects such as reading, language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. Multiple choice questions and open-ended items, which are scored a 0 to 3Some criticism: data too heavily weighted for rural classrooms and under represents urban classrooms Good reliability and validity

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Diagnostic Testing

Used to assess problems in learningPL 94-142 and IDEIA have made these types of tests crucial Laws assert that individuals (age 2 – 21) who

are suspected of having a disability that interferes with learning has right to be tested at school system’s expense

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. Developed to 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 to figure out a number of math problems. For ages 5 – 75.Internal consistency reliability in .90s.Rationale for content validity and evidence of construct 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

mathematics and 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 Achievement Test – Second Edition (WIAT-II), Woodcock-Johnson.

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Readiness Testing

Sometimes helpful in deciding whether a child is “ready” to move onto next level (usually kindergarten or first grade).Some problems: Children’s cognitive functioning changes

rapidly at young 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: Metropolitan Readiness Test, sixth

edition (MRT6)

Assesses beginning educational skills for 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 and motor growth, language development, and adaptive behavior.Arnold Gesell spent years examining the normal development As far as Gesell was concerned, “achievement” was more than how one scores on a reading or math test.Questionable Reliability and ValidityRead box 6.4, p. 118

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Types of Diagnostic Tests:Kindergarten Readiness Test

Used to determine if a child is ready to begin kindergarten.Covers Reasoning, Language, Auditory and Visual Attention, Numbers, Fine Motor 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 doingShould not be confused with intelligence tests.Often look more like achievement tests—but measure broad content areas.Good for identifying students not succeeding in school 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 reasoning abilities scores. Composite score also calculated Uses standard score with mean of 100 and standard deviation of 16, percentile ranks, and stanines Good reliability estimates: .80s & .90sOffers rationale for content validity but difficult to defend this type of test as it is used to measure future. Good concurrent validity.

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

K – 12Verbal, quantitative, and non-verbal sections Raw scores converted to stanines, percentile rank, a standard score called the school ability index, and normal curve equivalents (NCEs) by age or grade. Questionable content validity. Although fair concurrent 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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Types of Cognitive Ability Tests: College Admissions Exams

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 at 500.

Can look at a percentile score which compares examinee to students who took the test within past three 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 of college grades.

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Types of Cognitive Ability Tests: College Admissions Exams

GRE General Test: Three sections: verbal reasoning, quantitative

reasoning, and analytical writing. Verbal and quantitative scores range: 200-800. Has

floating mean and SD. Percentiles compare students within recent years.

For analytical writing. Scores ranked from 0 to 6 by two evaluators (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

when combined with undergraduate grades.

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Types of Cognitive Ability Tests: College Admissions Exams

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 when

combined 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

the first two years of medical school.

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The Role of Helpers in the

Assessment of Educational Ability

School counselors, school psychologists, learning disabilities specialists, and school social workers are members of the school’s special education team.

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

Clinical and counseling psychologists do additional assessments or 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 data to find students with learning problems.

Licensed professionals often need to consult with schools about their 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) are a 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

helps to identify weak areas they can focus upon