Chap 10 - Assessment for Education

• Few critics are against tests used for formative assessment (i.e., data gathered to monitor student learning so that students can focus their efforts and instructors can improve their teaching). 
• Summative assessment involves the use of data such as exams, papers, and projects to evaluate student learning at the end of the learning period. 
• a specific learning disability is “a 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 imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations.
• We may define the response to intervention model as a multilevel prevention framework applied in educational settings that is designed to maximize student achievement through the use of data that identifies students at risk for poor learning outcomes combined with evidence-based intervention and teaching that is adjusted on the basis of student responsiveness. 
• In recent years, many states have focused on delivering these academic interventions within a multitiered system of support (MTSS) that provides a broader range of services beyond academics to support learning and development. Services within MTSS include social and emotional support as well as behavioral planning and intervention.
• In this context, problem-solving model refers to the use of interventions tailored to students’ individual needs that are selected by a multidisciplinary team of school professionals.
• The term integrative assessment has been used to describe a multidisciplinary approach to evaluation that assimilates input from relevant sources.
• Vygotsky introduced the concept of a zone of proximal development or “the 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”
• Achievement tests are designed to measure accomplishment. An achievement test for a first-grader might have as its subject matter the English language alphabet, whereas an achievement test for a college student might contain questions relating to principles of psychological assessment. 
• Other batteries contain locator tests, or routing tests, which are pretests administered to determine the level of the actual test most appropriate for administration.
• Concern about such issues has led to an interest in curriculum-based assessment (CBA), a term used to refer to assessment of information acquired from teachings at school. 
• Curriculum-based measurement (CBM), a type of CBA, is 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.
• Aptitude tests, also referred to as prognostic tests, are typically used to make predictions. 
• At the preschool and elementary school level, you may hear references to readiness tests. Here, “readiness” presumably refers to the physical factors, personality factors, and other factors that are judged necessary for a child to be ready to learn.
• In general, a checklist is a questionnaire on which marks are made to indicate the presence or absence of a specified behavior, thought, event, or circumstance. 
• for our purposes, we will define a rating scale as a form completed by an evaluator (a rater, judge, or examiner) to make a judgment of relative standing with regard to a specified variable or list of variables.
• The sum total of what might be characterized as “everybody’s first test,” an Apgar number. The Apgar number is a score on a rating scale developed by physician Virginia Apgar
• We may define informal evaluation as a typically nonsystematic, relatively brief, and “off-the-record” assessment leading to the formation of an opinion or attitude conducted by any person, in any way, for any reason.
• In a most general sense, 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.
• The term evaluative, as used in phrases such as evaluative purposes or evaluative information, is typically applied to tests or test data that are used to make judgments (such as pass–fail and admit–reject decisions). 
• By contrast, diagnostic information, as used in educational contexts (and related phrases such as diagnostic purposes) is typically applied to tests or test data used to pinpoint a student’s difficulty, usually for remedial purposes.
• a diagnostic test is a tool used to identify areas of deficit to be targeted for intervention.
• Psychoeducational test batteries are 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.
• In keeping with these trends, particularly in educational and work settings, we will define a performance task as a work sample designed to elicit representative knowledge, skills, and values from a particular domain of study.
• Performance assessment will be defined as an evaluation of performance tasks according to criteria developed by experts from the domain of study tapped by those tasks.
• Portfolio assessment refers to the evaluation of one’s work samples. In many educational settings, dissatisfaction with some more-traditional methods of assessment has led to calls for more performance-based evaluations.
• We may define authentic assessment in educational contexts as 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.
• One method of obtaining information about an individual is by asking that individual’s peer group to make the evaluation. Techniques employed to obtain such information are termed peer appraisal methods. A teacher, a supervisor, or some other group leader may be interested in peer appraisals for a variety of reasons.
• The results of a peer appraisal can be graphically illustrated. One graphic method of organizing such data is the sociogram.