Lecture 3 - Assesments In Practice

Question 1

What do Educational Psychologists do?

Answer 1

Consultation**

Assessment**

Intervention**

Training

Research

Question 2

Why is it important to assess in education?

Answer 2

Closing the attainment gap

Question 3

What is the Attainment gap?

Answer 3

looking to ‘level up’ opportunity as certain groups of children have greater disadvantages than others.

Question 4

What is the gap between students of gypsy and Black backgrounds in terms of English and Maths GCSES?

Answer 4

10.9 months

Question 6

Is there differences in attainment within ethnic groups?

Answer 6

Yes- Indian groups score higher than bangaladeshi and pakistani

Question 7

Is there attainment differences between girls and boys?

Answer 7

A more complex answer - in different subjects (RUST)

Question 8

What does the BPS say about class and education?

Answer 8

Children from working class families have worse educational outcomes than their peers.

Question 9

What are the differences in attainment based on class?

Answer 9

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)

Question 10

How much have free school meals increased over COVID?

Answer 10

from 13.6 in Jan 2018 to 17.3 in Jan 2020

Question 11

Which ethnic groups have the most FSMs?

Answer 11

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%).

Question 12

What is a Psychometric Assessment?

Answer 12

scores on a test are compared to a comparison group, so the strength of abilities can be judged relative to other students (norm-referenced).

Question 13

What is a curriculum based assessment?

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

What is an example of a Curriculum based approach?

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

Who is Alfred Binet (1857-1911) ?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Examples of early ability test questions -

Answer 16

whether the child could shake hands with the examiner or whether they could construct a sentence from words such as Paris, river and fortune.

Question 17

What is an example of a psychometric test?

Answer 17

The British Ability Scales 3

Question 18

What is the British ability scale?

Answer 18

• Three cluster scores can be made which show the strength of verbal, nonverbal and spatial abilities. Combining these scores is known as GCA

Question 19

What does GCA stand for’?

Answer 19

General conceptual ability

Question 20

What is an average GCA percentile?

Answer 20

16-84 is the norm

Question 21

What is Goddards 1912 text?

Answer 21

‘The Kalilak Family: A study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness’

Question 22

What did Goddards text show?

Answer 22

warned against sexual unions producing intellectually inferior descendants. (EUGENICS)

Question 23

What is Eugenics?

Answer 23

‘the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable’

Question 24

What did Terman research?

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Terman’s Stanford-Binet original (1916) classification:

Answer 25

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

Question 26

What is psychometrics?

Answer 26

Reliability
Validity
Standardisation
Freedom from bias

Question 26

What are some assumptions of intelligence tests?

Answer 26

*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

Question 27

What did Reddy 2008 say about the idea of such a test?

Answer 27

‘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’.

Question 28

Is there any explanatory or predictive power to intelligence tests?

Answer 28

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%

Question 29

Theoretical scepticism around measurement of intelligence -

Answer 29

how can a single construct such as IQ predict progress in literacy and numeracy? (Alloway and Alloway 2015)

Question 30

Practical scepticism around measurement of intelligence -

Answer 30

how can norm-based measures of intelligence help teachers to plan and adapt teaching? (Freeman and Miller 2001)

Question 31

Moral scepticism around measurement of intelligence -

Answer 31

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).

Question 32

Ideological scepticism around measurement of intelligence -

Answer 32

have some of the interpretations following intelligence testing been used in racist ways? (Mackintosh 2007)

Question 33

Pedagogical scepticism around measurement of intelligence -

Answer 33

would a concept of a child having a fixed level of ability discourage teachers from trying to develop untapped potential? (Adey et al 2007)

Question 34

What does Lev Vygotsky 1896-1934 believe?

Answer 34

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.

Question 35

What is dynamic assessment?

Answer 35

Teaching from a skilled other can create buds of development

Question 36

What is Scaffolding?

Answer 36

(Wood et al 1976)

The child responds well to hand over hand mediation when practising letter formation

Question 37

What did Lokke, Gersch, M’gadzah & Frederickson find?

Answer 37

65% of services were making significant or indeed increased use of psychometrics.

Question 38

What did Woods and Farrell 2006 find?

Answer 38

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.

Question 39

Do people use dynamic assessment enough?

Answer 39

Approaches to dynamic assessment are not used frequently although those who do use them find them to be useful to the purpose of assessment.

Question 40

How useful do teachers find information from three assessment paradigms: normative, dynamic assessment and curriculum related/ criterion referenced?

Answer 40

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…