Wortham: Chapter 2 Assessing young children

1. Wortham: Chapter 2Assessing young children • Why are infants and Preschoolers measured differently than older children and adults? • How does the demand for accountability as espoused in NRS (National Reporting System) conflict with current research on assessment? (Appropriateness)

2. Principles of Assessment • Assessment should use multiple sources of information-”use of a variety of measures of learning ensures an accurate view of the child’s accomplishments” (Greenspan et al 1996, Wiggins, 1993) • Assessment should BENEFIT the child and improve learning-according to Wiggins cited in Wortham (2008, p31), whatever assessment strategies are used, the information should be used to guide the child and enhance learning.

3. Principles cont… • Assessment should involve the child and family-a parent’s knowledge about the child is essential for true understanding of the child’s developmental characteristics. • Assessment should be fair for all children (sources of unfairness, language, culture, disabilities)

4. National Education Goals Panel 1998 • Assessment should bring benefits for children-(there must be clear benefit) • Assessment should be purposeful, reliable, valid and fair. • Recognize that reliability and validity increase with children’s age • Assessment should be age appropriate in content and methods of data collection • Assessment should be linguistically appropriate (in some ways assessment is are measures of language!) • Parents should be valued sources of information

5. Assessing infants and Young children • Both informal and formal measures are used • Formal measures have proven measures of evaluation (standardized Tests), e.g. • Apgar scale • In standardized testing, test tasks are presented under standard conditions so that the student’s scores can be contrasted to the performance of a norm group (the students level of functioning is described in relation to typical or average performance) – example of standard room!!!

6. Requirements for standardized testing • Follow standard procedures (preparation for testing, environment, student • The child’s best efforts must be enlisted (maintain rapport) • Responses must be correctly scored (Terman and Merrill, cited in McLoughlin & Lewis, 2008, p.75) (Follow guidelines in the manual)—No paraphrasing.

7. The process of Assessment • Pre-assessment: prior to planning the curriculum • Ongoing Assessment: Done throughout the year and documented (formative/ summative • Assessment at the end of reporting periods: Summary progress reporting periods • Assessment at the end of the year: Most complete, may use standardized achievement tests, teacher designed assessments, written narratives, etc

8. The Standards • How do we focus on appropriate learning and assessment of young children and yet address standards? • The purpose of standards : to provide clarity for the curriculum content, to raise expectations for student learning, and to ensure accountability as required by NCLB

9. Standardized Tests • Note that the educational system in the US has included a strong standardized test tradition. • Standardized tests allow large numbers of students to respond to the same or similar sets of exercises under approximately the same conditions of test administration, scoring procedures, and test score interpretation. • Standardized tests enable us to compare examinees across students, classrooms, and countries. • There are norm referenced and Criterion-referenced tests.

10. Limitations and Inadequacies of Standardized Tests • Technical and educational Inadequacy (fail the APA, AERA & NCME standards) • Overuse and Misuse • Unsuitable for the population • Undue influence on education

11. Types of Standardized tests • Achievement tests (California Achievement test etc.) • Standardized aptitude tests (IQ tests, WISC-R, MSCA, Stanford-Binet) • Screening and diagnostic tests (identification and placement

12. Types of Standardized tests Standardized testing in early childhood classrooms today • For policy decisions (accountability) • For screening and diagnosis of potential problems • Teacher Role • May choose a test, administer, prepare children, may score the test

13. Terminology • Raw score - the number of items answered correctly. • Mean – Average • Range – The spread of the scores (top# -bottom#) • Standard Deviation – Measure the distance scores depart from the mean (helps us quantify the spread of the distribution)

14. Standardization and Norms • Standardized tests eliminate bias (supposedly). • Principles to follow: • Match the test to the question you want to answer, Use standardized measures according to the designed purpose, choose tests that are valid and reliable, you must follow the directions of standardized tests exactly, be sure to understand what the test reports and the statistics generated, use multiple assessment methods to evaluate children and programs.

15. Standardized/Norm-referenced Test • A task or a set of tasks given under prescribed conditions and designed to assess some aspect of a person’s knowledge, skill, or personality. • In designing a standardized test- rationale, what is to be measured, who will be measured, how the results will be used. • Remember to ascertain that the test was developed to children who are similar to your children (population v sample) • Norming is the process of finding out what score most children of a given age will earn …

16. Reliability • Reliability refers to consistency, dependability, or stability. If a test can generalize to different times, it has test-retest reliability. If a test can generalize to other testers, it has interscorer reliability. Validity • Validity refers to the extent to which a test measures what it is supposed to measure what it is supposed to measure.(face validity, content validity etc.