Chapter 6: Assessment of Educational Ability

1. Chapter 6: Assessment of Educational Ability • Survey Battery • Diagnostic • Readiness • Cognitive Ability Tests

2. 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.

3. 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) SurveyDiagnosticReadiness Intelligence Cognitive Special Multiple BatteryTestsTests Tests AbilityAptitude Aptitude

4. 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).

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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-order thinking” • Reliability of most subtests in the .80s to .90s and strong content validity.

9. 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 3 • Some criticism: data too heavily weighted for rural classrooms and under represents urban classrooms • Good reliability and validity

10. Diagnostic Testing • Used to assess problems in learning • PL 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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

15. 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 Validity • Read box 6.4, p. 118

16. 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.

17. Cognitive Ability Tests • Assesses what an individual is capable of doing • Should 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.

18. 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 & .90s • Offers rationale for content validity but difficult to defend this type of test as it is used to measure future. Good concurrent validity.

19. Types of Cognitive Ability Tests: Otis-Lennon School Ability Test • K – 12 • Verbal, 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.

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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