Chapter 11: Preschool & Educational Assessment Flashcards
Preschool Period
First five years of life
Public Law 94-142
Mandated the professional evaluation of children age 3 and older suspected of having physical or mental disabilities to determine their special educational needs; also provided federal funds to help states meet those needs
PL 94-142/PL-99-457
Extended downward to birth the obligation of states toward children with disabilities; further mandated that beggining with school year 1990-1991, all disabled children from ages 3 to 5 were to be provided with a free appropriate education
PL 105-17
Intended to give greater attention to diversity issues, especially as a factor in evaluation and assignment of special services; also mandated that infants and toddlers with disabilities must receive services in the home or in other natural settings and that such services were to be continued in preschool programs
Tools of Preschool Assessment
Checklists & Rating Scales
Psychological Tests
Other Measures
Checklist
Questionnaire on which marks are made to indicate the absence or presence of a specified behavior, thought, event, or circumstance; can cover a wide array of item content and still be relatively economical and quick to administer
Rating Scale
A form completed by an evaluator to make a judgment of relative standing with regard to a specified variable or list of variables
Most Commonly Used Checklists and Rating Scales for Children
Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist
Connors Rating Scales-Revised - for ADHD
Syndrome
Defined as a set of co-occuring emotional and behavioral problems
At Risk
Refers to children who have documented difficulties in one or more psychological, social, or academic areas and for whom intervention is or may be required
Psychological Tests for Children
WPPSI-III, SB5 and others
Value of Preschool Tests
Lies in their ability to help identify children who are in a very low range of functioning and in need of intervention
Other Measures for use with Preschoolers
Interviews
Case History Methods
Portfolio Evaluatoin
Role-play methods
Achievement Tests
Designed to measure accomplishment; may be standardized or not; vary widely with respect to psychometric soundness
Specific Learning Disability
Disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken, or written, which disorder may manifest itself in the imprefect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations
Achievement Batteries
subtests which cover a number of academic areas
Locator/Routing Tests
Pretests administered to determine the level of the actual test most appropriate for administration
Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Second Edition (WIAT-II)
Features nine subtests that sample content in each of the seven areas listed in a past revision of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
Cooperative Achievement Test
Consists of a series of separate achievement test in areas as diverse as English, mathematics, literature, social studies, social science, and foreign languages
College Level Examination Program (CLEP)
based on the premise that knowledge may be obtained through independent study and sources other than formal schooling
Proficiency Examination Program
Another service designed to assess achievement and skills learned outside the classroom
Adult Basic Learning Examination (ABLE)
A test intended for use with examinees age 17 and older who have not completed eight years of formalized schooling
Curriculum Based Assessment (CBA)
Term used to refer to assessment of information acquired from teachings at school
Curriculum Based Measurement (CBM)
type of CBA, characterized by the use of standardized measurement procedures to derive local norms to be used in the evaluation of student performance on curriculum-based tasks
Types of Achievement Tests
Rote Based and Factual in Nature
Conceptual in nature - must draw on and apply knowledge related to a particular concept
Aptitude (Prognostic Tests)
Used to make predictions; used to measure readiness for elementary school, complete a challenging course of study in secondary school; successfully complete college-level work; successfully complete graduate-level work
Readiness Test
Primary purpose of the tests is to assess a child’s readiness for learning
Metropolitan Readiness Tests (MRT)
Group-Administered battery that assesses the development of the reading and mathematics skills impotant in the early stages of formal school learning
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)
A number of tests that consist of SAT Reasoning Test & SAT subject tests; serve as a gatekeeping function
ACT Assessment
Curriculum based with questions directly based on typical high-school subject areas
Graduate Record Examinations (GRE)
Long-standing rite of passage for students seeking admission to graduate school; has a General Test form as well as analytical and writing sections
Miller Analogies Test (MAT)
100-item, multiple-choice analogy test that draws not only on the examinee’s ability to perceive relationships, but also on general intelligence, vocabulary, and academic learning
Seahorse Measure of Musical Talents
Now-classic measure of musical aptitude administered with the aid of a record or prerecorded tape
Milton Budoff
Explored differences between deficits identified by standardized tests that seemed to be due to differences in education versus mental deficiency; determining whether training could improve test performance
Reuven Feuerstein
Focused on the extent to which teaching of principles and strategies (mediated learning) modified cognition; developed the Learning Potential Assessment Device
Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD)
Designed to yield information about the nature and amount of intervention required to enhance a child’s performance
Lev Vygotsky
Introduced the concept of a zone of proximal development
Zone of Proximal Development
Distance between the actual developmental level as determined by individual problem solving, and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers
Zone
Area between a testtaker’s ability as measured by a formal test and what might be possible with instruction or guidance
Dynamic Assessment Procedures
Assessors when intervening, coaching or other guidance, are not neutral
Goal may be to do everything in their power to help the testtaker master material in preparation for retesting; Variations may be introduced by assessors to better understand or remediate the obstacles to learning
Evaluative Information
Typically applied to tests or test data that are used to make judgments (pass/fail, admit/reject decisions)
Diagnostic Information
Typically applied to tests or test data used to pinpoint a student’s difficulty, usually for remedial purposes; do not necesaril provide information that will answer questions concerning why a learning difficulty exists
Reading Tests
Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test
Metropolitan Reading Instructional Tests
Diagnostic Reading Scales
Durrell Analysis of Reading Test
Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests-Revised (WRMT-R)
Suitable for children age 5 and older and adults to age 75 and beyond; includes Letter identification, word identification, word attaack, word comprehension, and passage comprehension; measures Basic Skills & Reading Comprehension
Math Tests
Stanford Diagnostic Mathematics Test
Metropolitan Mathematics Instructional Tests
Diagnostic Mathematics Inventory
KeyMath Revised: A Diagnostic Inventory of Essential Mathematics
Other Diagnostic Tests
Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test
Stanford Diagnostic Mathematics Test
Psychoeducational Test Batteries
Test kits that generally contain two types of tests: those that measure abilities related to academic success and those that measure educational achievement in areas such as reading and arithmetic
Kaufman Asessment Battery for Children (K-ABC)
Designed for use with testtakers from age 2 1/2 through age 12 1/2; subtests measuring both intelligence and achievement are included
Alexander Luria
Identified two kinds of information-processing skills: Simultaneous and Sequential
Sequential Learner
Solves problems best by mentally arranging small amounts of information in consecutive, linear, step-by-step order. He/she is most at home with verbal instructions and cues because the ability to interpret spoken language depends to a great extent on the sequence of words
Simultaneous Learner
Solves problems best by mentally integrating and synthesizing many parallel pieces of information at the same time. He/she is most at home with visual instructions and cues because the ability to interpret the environment visually depends on perceiving and integrating many details at once
Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ III)
Psychoeducational test package consisting of two co-normed batteries: Tests of Achievement and Tests of Cognitive Abilities based on the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) Theory of Cognitive Abilities; yields a measure of general intellectual ability (g) as well as measures of specific cognitive abilities, achievement, scholastic aptitude, and oral language; used in conjunction with other assessment techniques
Other Tools of Assessment in Educational Settings
Performance, Portfolio and Authentic Assessment
Performance Assessment
Vaguely referred to any type of assessment that requires the examinee to do more than choose the correct response from a small group of alternatives; focuses on the knowledge, skills, and values that the examinee must marshal and exhibit
Performance Task
Work sample designed to elicit representative knowledge, skills, and values from a particular domain of study
Performance Assessment
Evaluation of performance tasks according to criteria developed by experts from the domain of study tapped by those tasks
Portfolio
Synonymous with work sample
Portfolio Assessment
Refers to the evaluation of one’s work samples
Authentic Assessment
One name given to this trent toward more performance-based assessment; evaluation of relevant, meaningful tasks that may be conducted to evaluate learning of academic subject matter but that demonstrate the student’s transfer of that study to real-world activities
Peer Appraisal Methods
Asking an individual’s peer group to make the evaluation; provides information about behavior
Nominating Technique
Method of peer appraisal in which individuals are asked to select or nominate other individuals for various types of activities
Sociogram
Graphically illustrated peer appraisal; figures such as circles or squares are drawn to represent different individuals, and lines and arrows are drawn to indicate various types of interaction
