Lecture 3 - Assesments In Practice Flashcards
What do Educational Psychologists do?
Consultation**
Assessment**
Intervention**
Training
Research
Why is it important to assess in education?
Closing the attainment gap
What is the Attainment gap?
looking to ‘level up’ opportunity as certain groups of children have greater disadvantages than others.
What is the gap between students of gypsy and Black backgrounds in terms of English and Maths GCSES?
10.9 months
Is there differences in attainment within ethnic groups?
Yes- Indian groups score higher than bangaladeshi and pakistani
Is there attainment differences between girls and boys?
A more complex answer - in different subjects (RUST)
What does the BPS say about class and education?
Children from working class families have worse educational outcomes than their peers.
What are the differences in attainment based on class?
Education as those eligible for free school meals (FSM) at any point within a six-year span – are estimated to lag behind their peers by the equivalent of five months of learning.
- 63 at A- LEVEL (three full grades below)
How much have free school meals increased over COVID?
from 13.6 in Jan 2018 to 17.3 in Jan 2020
Which ethnic groups have the most FSMs?
Irish heritage ethnic group (63.3%) and Gypsy/Roma ethnic group (51.9%). Rates were lowest among pupils of Indian (7.5%) and Chinese ethnic groups (7.8%).
What is a Psychometric Assessment?
scores on a test are compared to a comparison group, so the strength of abilities can be judged relative to other students (norm-referenced).
What is a curriculum based assessment?
comparing a student’s performance with criterion linked to the local curriculum. Progress may be gathered systematically over time and in a variety of settings using materials employed for instruction (comparing performance in terms of pre-established goals). May be gathered through consultation and evaluation results may not be readily generalised.
What is an example of a Curriculum based approach?
This child is working towards year two levels in reading’. This is not a psychometric assessment even though it is a standardised means of assessment. It is not measuring the ‘psyche’ but performance of a skill.
Who is Alfred Binet (1857-1911) ?
Published the first ability test - Intelligence was felt to be measured by a range of tasks that were felt to be representative of typical children’s abilities at a certain age
Examples of early ability test questions -
whether the child could shake hands with the examiner or whether they could construct a sentence from words such as Paris, river and fortune.
What is an example of a psychometric test?
The British Ability Scales 3
What is the British ability scale?
- Three cluster scores can be made which show the strength of verbal, nonverbal and spatial abilities. Combining these scores is known as GCA
What does GCA stand for’?
General conceptual ability
What is an average GCA percentile?
16-84 is the norm
What is Goddards 1912 text?
‘The Kalilak Family: A study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness’
What did Goddards text show?
warned against sexual unions producing intellectually inferior descendants. (EUGENICS)
What is Eugenics?
‘the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable’
What did Terman research?
He standardised the scale using a large american sample, this was twisted from advocating for right to education to eugenics and eliminate crime and inefficiency
Terman’s Stanford-Binet original (1916) classification:
80-90 Dullness, rarely classifiable as feeble-mindedness
70-80 = Borderline deficiency, sometimes classifiable as dullness, often as feeble-mindedness
Below 70 = definite feeble mindedness
What is psychometrics?
Reliability
Validity
Standardisation
Freedom from bias
What are some assumptions of intelligence tests?
*That intelligence is static
*That it can be precisely measured
That it is possible to design a testing instrument capable of peeling back layers of economic and socioeconomic shrouding to reveal a true essence of intelligence
What did Reddy 2008 say about the idea of such a test?
‘Intelligence is fluid, multi-faceted and irreducible to a numeric standard….
We aren’t living in a meritocracy. Privilege is reproduced generation after generation.
Although we have moved to a model of difference rather than deficiency, and from persecution to protection, we still use mental retardation pretextually’.
Is there any explanatory or predictive power to intelligence tests?
in 1947, 41% disagreed that you cna tell if an adult is going to be intelligent from when they are 8/10
in 1973, 52%
Theoretical scepticism around measurement of intelligence -
how can a single construct such as IQ predict progress in literacy and numeracy? (Alloway and Alloway 2015)
Practical scepticism around measurement of intelligence -
how can norm-based measures of intelligence help teachers to plan and adapt teaching? (Freeman and Miller 2001)
Moral scepticism around measurement of intelligence -
Could the measurement of intelligence be inequitable in its treatment of children who have had access to limited learning opportunities during early childhood? (Scarr 1984).
Ideological scepticism around measurement of intelligence -
have some of the interpretations following intelligence testing been used in racist ways? (Mackintosh 2007)
Pedagogical scepticism around measurement of intelligence -
would a concept of a child having a fixed level of ability discourage teachers from trying to develop untapped potential? (Adey et al 2007)
What does Lev Vygotsky 1896-1934 believe?
He is considering more of the socio-cultural factors -
children acquire their cultural values, beliefs problem-solving strategies through collaborative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society.
What is dynamic assessment?
Teaching from a skilled other can create buds of development
What is Scaffolding?
(Wood et al 1976)
The child responds well to hand over hand mediation when practising letter formation
What did Lokke, Gersch, M’gadzah & Frederickson find?
65% of services were making significant or indeed increased use of psychometrics.
What did Woods and Farrell 2006 find?
partial psychometric assessments of ability feature prominently in the assessment of children with learning difficulties, though less in the assessment of children with behaviour problems.
Do people use dynamic assessment enough?
Approaches to dynamic assessment are not used frequently although those who do use them find them to be useful to the purpose of assessment.
How useful do teachers find information from three assessment paradigms: normative, dynamic assessment and curriculum related/ criterion referenced?
assessment information was rated as the most useful for understanding children’s needs and abilities and for planning teaching responses (for example, the number of sight words used; which letters were reversed when writing and degree of accuracy when reading a text).
They were also interested in dynamic assessment although they felt they knew little about it…
