Exam 4: Ch. 15 Flashcards
Standardized test
- uniform procedures for administration and scoring;
- “allows student’s performance to be compared” w the performance of other students at the same grade level or age.
What is the purpose of a Standardized Test:
- provide info about students progress
- diagnose students’ strengths and weaknesses
- provide evidence for placement of students in specific programs
- provide info for planning and improving instruction
- contribute to accountability
Norm-referenced Tests
-standardized tests in which a student’s score is interpreted by comparing it with how others (the norm) performed.
Criterion-referenced Tests
Standardized tests in which the student’s performance is compared with established criteria.
Validity
- extent to which a test “measures what it is intended to” measure and
- whether inferences about the test scores are accurate and appropriate
Reliability
- the extent to which a test produces a consistent, reproducible score.
Aptitude Tests
-Predict a student’s ability to learn with further education and training (SAT)
Achievement Tests
-Measure what a student has learned (course exam)
High-Stakes Testing
- using tests in a way that will have important consequences for the student.
- affecting such decisions as whether the student will be promoted or be allowed to graduate.
Advantages of High-Stakes Testing
- improved student performance
- more time teaching the subjects tested
- high expectations for all students
- identification of poorly performing schools, teachers, and administrators
- improved confidence in schools as test scores increase
Negative consequences of High-Stake Testing (state-mandated tests)
- dumbing down of the curriculum w emphasis on rote memorization rather than on problem solving and critical thinking skills.
- teaching to the test
- discrimination against low-SES and ethnic minority children
Validity of Inferences drawn from Tests:
- Ex: using test scores from a standardized test given to students each spring as an indicator of teacher competence.
- the teachers whose students score higher are more competent than those who score lower
No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
- Governments effort to hold schools and school districts accountable for the success or failure of their students
- Legislation shifts responsibility to the states, w states being required to create their own standards for student’s achievement in math, english/language arts, and science.
No Child Left Behind: Goals
-close the ethnic achievement gap that characterizes lower achievement by African american and Latino students and higher achievement by Asian American and non-Latino white students
No Child Left Behind; Accountability: ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS (AYP)
- is a measurement defined by the United States federal No Child Left Behind Act that allows the U.S. Department of Education to determine how every public school and school district in the country is performing academically according to results on standardized tests
- Schools that fail to make AYP for two consecutive years are labeled as “under performing”
- entire school and subgroups
Preparing Students to take Standardized Test: Do’s
- communicate a positive attitude about the test
- improve students’ test-taking skills
- explain the test’s nature and purpose
- describe as an opportunity and a challenge rather than an ordeal
- have students w test anxiety talk with a counselor on ways to reduce anxiety.
Preparing Students to take Standardized Test: Dont’s
- teach to the test
- describe tests as burdens
- tell students important decisions will be made solely on the results of a single test.
- convey a negative attitude about the test
Frequency distributions
-A listing of scores, usually from highest to lowest, along w the number of times each score apperas
Measures of Central Tendency: Mean
- numerical average of a group of scores.
- computed by adding all the scores and dividing by the amount of scores
Measures of Central Tendency: Median
-the score that falls exactly in the middle of a distribution of scores after they have been arranged from highest to lowest.
Measures of Central Tendency: Mode
-the score that occurs the most often
Measures of Variability: Range
-the distance/difference between the highest and the lowest scores
Measures of Variability: Standard Deviation
- A measure of how much a set of scores varies on the average around the mean of the scores.
- (how closely scores cluster around the mean)
- the smaller the standard deviation the less scores vary from the mean
- the greater the standard deviation, the more the scores spread out from the mean
Central Tendency
-a number that provided information about the average, or typical, score in a set of data
Measure of Variability
-Measures that tell how much scores vary from one another.
Normal Distribution
- A “Bell-Shaped curve” in which most of the scores are clustered around the mean;
- the farther above or bellow the mean that we travel, the less frequently each score occurs
- most common scores near the middle
- incorporates information about both mean and standard deviation
Descriptive Statistics
-mathematical procedures that are used to describe and summarize data in a meaningful way
