Chapter 6:
Assessment of Educational Ability
Survey Battery
Diagnostic
Readiness
Cognitive Ability Tests
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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.
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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)
Survey Diagnostic Readiness
Battery Tests
Tests
Intelligence Cognitive
Tests
Special
Ability
Multiple
Aptitude
Aptitude
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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).
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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construct and criterion-related validity.
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. 12
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.
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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

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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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college grades.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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