Standardized Testing

Standardized Testing

• Removes subjectivity from the testing process
• Relies on the theory that knowledge and morals are based on external reality, not subjective opinions
• Not created by teachers
• Measures student performance under uniform and consistent conditions
• A standardized test is any assessment administered, scored, and interpreted the same way for all students
• Standardized tests are used throughout life, from birth to the end of school
• Used to assess and monitor skill development in young children, particularly in preschool settings, looking at domain-specific skills like motor, language, social, and cognitive abilities
• Used to assess and monitor academic achievement in schools, focusing on math and language skills
• Used to diagnose disabilities and provide access to intervention, which is often tied to program funding

Grouping of Tests

• Ability Tests: Examine overall intellectual capacity, such as IQ tests
• Achievement Tests: Assess specific skills resulting from instruction, like math and language
• Aptitude Tests: Determine how well someone might learn specific skills, often used in high school to assess talent

Validity & Reliability

• Validity: The degree to which the test serves its intended purpose and accurately measures what it's supposed to
• Reliability: The extent to which the test is stable or consistent

Standard Deviation

• Describes a person's position on a bell curve by indicating how far they are from the mean
• A way of showing how far a person's score deviates from the mean, similar to Z scores and T scores

WISC and Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales

• The biggest difference is between them
• The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (5th ed.) are not used for children under 8
  • IQ is not stable under age 8
• The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (4th ed.)
  • Most used in special education
  • Usually done to qualify for services and establish a diagnosis
  • Created by David Wechsler

Age Range:

• WISC: 6-16 years
• SB: under age of 8

Scoring Structure:

• WISC: 5 index scores (e.g. verbal, working memory)
• SB: 5 factors, each with verbal & nonverbal parts

Use:

• WISC: Common in schools, clinical testing
• SB: Used for giftedness, wider age testing

General Assessment

• Key to meaningful assessment
• Assessment is the process of gathering information about children from multiple sources, then organizing and interpreting that information
• "Assessment is the process of gathering information about children from several forms of evidence, then organizing and interpreting that information"

Formative Assessment

• Helps students learn and practice throughout the course
• Used to identify gaps and improve learning via approaches that support specific student needs

Summative Assessment

• Assesses student performance at the end of the instructional period
• Collects evidence of student knowledge, skill, and proficiency through exit learning products or a cumulative assessment

Formative Assessments

• It is part of the teaching process
• Evaluates the effectiveness of the teaching and can include self and peer assessments

Summative Assessment

• The Teacher developed it
• Evaluates what students have learned at the end of teaching and can also help inform teaching

Early Childhood General Assessment

• Use of the Nippissing District Development screen

Diagnosis for Evaluation in Early Childhood:

• Difficulties and reasons why certain aspects are difficult or easy to diagnose

• Testing young children with disabilities is difficult with traditional paper-based assessments

• Assessing young children is difficult due to short attention spans, easy distraction, and variable behaviors that impact focus and cooperation during testing

• Young children with disabilities often require assessments from multiple professionals

• It is time-consuming for parents to schedule individual assessments

• Professionals may evaluate from their own perspectives and may not know of other evaluations

• Easier to observe in natural settings, and can get parental input

Assessment of Infants and Young Children

• Informal: Observation, screening tools, Portfolios
• Formal: Standardized tests

Program Evaluation

• Consider if the instructional strategies used were effective and if students learned what was expected
  • If not, determine why and how to improve
• Takeaway: assessments must be ongoing, purposeful, strategic, involve communication with the family, consider the child's level of development and functioning, and evaluate the effectiveness of programming

Assessing Young Children

• Must consider the problem, why assessing young children is difficult, and what to look for
• Goal: to use assessment methods effectively to serve the needs of individual children, focusing on the attributes of the assessment and its fit with the child's attributes
  • Inability to predict future achievement or functioning

Challenges

• Accountability requirements.
• Challenges for teachers.
• Emphasis on skill development.
• Narrowing of curriculum and experiences.

Daniel Hawphmen case

• Sued the NYC board of education in 1978
• At 5 years 9 months he was given the Stanford Binet intelligence scale and got an IQ of 74, and was assigned to a segregated class for children with intellectual disabilities
• Stanford Binet intelligence only tests for oral ability
• At 17 years he went to work
  • Government assistance identified he was different and ended up getting a WISC
  • Verbally=85, Performance=107, Overall score=94
• He was in the wrong place which set him back
• The school board was negligent in its tests and the recommended tests were not followed and no speech therapy was given because it was not revelant

Bd Defence:

• Test was done by a professional psychologist

• Supported by the professional judgement of teachers

• Re test not specified

• His intelligence should be re evaluated within a two year period for a more accurate estimation of his abilities

  • Ensure his re-evaluation is done within a two year period so that a more accurate estimation of his abilities can be made

Summative

• Process of collecting data for making decisions about individuals
• Assess student performance
• Evaluate what students have learned at the end of teaching
• When: at the end of the instructional period

Formative Assessments

• Planned and systematic process of gathering and interpreting evidence about learning to make a judgment about that learning
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching
• When: throughout the course

Objectives

• What goals, instructional objectives, and intended findings are
• Why we have them, why they're important, the kind of language used
• What is really important when writing an objective
• Objectives describes the result of instruction and how you are going to achieve the final goals
  • What you are going to teach/guide

Instructional Objective

• Is a description of an observable skill
• What you want to see in learners
• As proof that they have learned what they were supposed to learn: see learning
• Consider: What do I want my students to be able to do after they have learned the material I have taught?

Why are objectives important?

• For guidance on instructional content, procedures, and evaluation

ABCD Components of Writing Objectives

• A-Audience: WHo "the student will be able to..."
• B-Behaviour: What “a learner is expected to do or the product or result of doing
• C-Conditions: The specific conditions under which the performance is to occur
• D-Degree: Criterion of acceptable performance.How well the learner must perform in order for that performance to be acceptable ex:50% in the course
  • Example: Given an array of nuts-condition, the student-audience will be able to sort the nuts correctly into two groups:-Behaviour nuts with smooth shells and nuts with rough shells-Degree
  • Example: Physical domain: Following a series of activities-Conditions and catching large rubber balls, the child- audience will be able to catch the ball with both in four out of six tries-Degree

IPRC

• In-school support duties: Standard Monthly Meetings involves
  • Principal or vice principal
  • Special education resource teacher
  • Other experienced teachers and school social worker
• The classroom teacher presents child or parental referral
• Parents are able to suggest for a assessment
• This meeting supports with strategies for the teacher to use in the class
• Out-of-school support what they do
• Team members: (regional special ed, social workers, psych, speech/language)
• School Resources parents std parent?
• No longer the teacher in the classroom but the special education teacher
• Parents are usually involved in these meetings

Decisions:

1. Monitor Psych assessment
2. Social work
3. Speech lang + Psych
4. Social work + psych

Conducting an Assessment:

• Requires understanding its purpose, defining clear objectives, and ensuring the assessment is valid, reliable, and fair
  • When beginning to conduct an assessment, it should be a couple months into the school year

Blooms Taxonomy

• A framework for categorizing educational goals into a hierarchy of cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains
• Helps educators structure learning experiences and assessments by classifying objectives into increasing levels of complexity, ultimately fostering higher-order thinking skills
• The cognitive domain, the most well-known, outlines six levels: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating.
• Bloom's Taxonomy is a tool used by educators to design learning experiences and assessments that promote different types of thinking and was originally developed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom and his team
  • It has been revised over time, with the latest version emphasizing verbs over nouns in the cognitive domain

Curriculum

• Modification: changing what the student is expected to learn
• Accommodation: changing how the student learns or accesses information

How do they apply to the IEP

• Modifications are clearly documented in the IEP and aligns with individualized goals
• Accommodations are Listed under supports, help ensure equal access to the curriculum and does not Standardize curriculum for all
• Test to ensure mastery
• If both high and low SES students pass=equality of opportunity
• Equality versus equity
• Equity relies on
• Teaching every single child to read fluently
• But Especially
• Students with special educational needs
• Learning disabilities.
• Boys.
• Black and racialized students.
• Multilingual(students)
• Students from low income backgrounds.
• Indigenous students.

Purpose of Assessments

• To understand students learning and to improve there learning throughout the school year and identity for extra support for there needs

IEP:

• A written plan that documents learning expectations and is different/alternate from the age-appropriate level set by the Ministry of Education
• Includes accountability, special education services, accommodations, modifications, teaching approaches/supports, and evaluation processes
  • It is based on strengths and needs

What is the purpose

• Support children learning by identifying and addressing individual needs
• Provides accommodations, modifications, and alternative expectations

How we use it

• As a working document outlining student strengths and needs, learning expectations, teaching strategies, accommodations & modifications, assessment methods, and transition plans

Process:

• Through an IPRC (Identification, Placement, and Review Committee)

• Or based on educator/parent observation and data

• IEP Development within 30 school days of placement in a special education program

  • Created by school team, often with parent input
  • Used daily by educators to adapt instruction

• Review & Update adjusted based on progress and changing needs, and reviewed at least once per reporting period

IPRC (Identify, Placement and Review Committee

• Full process of it (steps)

1. Meeting:

• The IPRC meets to discuss the student's strengths, needs, and relevant information

2. Decision:

• The committee makes a decision on whether the student should be identified as exceptional and what placement is needed

3. Documentation:

• The IPRC provides written reasons for its decisions, and parents receive a copy of the written report

4. Individual Education Plan (IEP):

• After an IPRC identifies a student as exceptional, the school board has 30 days to develop an IEP, which outlines the student's individualized support plan

Standardized tests

• Norm groups: Find the group of children/adults that are representative of the group the test will be used for (define in terms of gender, SES, diversity, etc)
• Consider a child's performance compared to skill mastery and subjects taught in school

The Beginning of the Education System in Ontario

• Includes a public education system for local children (provincial), residential schools for children with disabilities (provincial), and residential schools for Indigenous children (federal)
• Religious influence dominated with most early education tied to Catholic denominations
  • No standard curriculum
  • Lessons varied by teacher and location
  • Fees were paid by the government and local peoples through tax
• Made up of one trustee who hires principles and teacher and keeps up with legatation
• Compulsory Attendance Laws 1871:All children should go to school
  • Difficult in cities if children were not going to school

1980s (Bill 82)

• The Education Amendment Act
• Bill 82: was mandatory and exists today which governs special education and schools have to take the children
• All school boards in Ontario are obligated to service all students with disabilities
• Boards required by law to have in place plans for special education/provisions
• Somewhere in the building does not have to be in a regular classroom
• Are still trying send children to other schools

Assessment

• What can it actually tell you about a child, as it is the cause of many errors
• What should we look for as an educator
• Understand the purpose of assessment
• Think about how it is used
• Think about the ramifications of its use
• Overall process of it

Percentile

• Tells you what percentage of children fall below or above an individual's score
• E.g., the 23Rd percentile means that this person did as well as 23 percent of the people used to represent the attribute
  • That child did better than 23 out of 100 children on the test
• The percentile rank is a measure of relative position (everybody who took the test)

EQAO

• Measures student achievement in reading, writing and math
• Used to assess how well students and schools are meeting curriculum expectations and how well a teacher is doing in the classroom
• Not a standardized test: Does not assess all subjects

Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP)

• Goals, expectations, how progress will be assessed, and services provided
• The transition process before kindergarten for preschool and between grade 8 and high school both require a different approach

Creation of Standardized Tests

• Determined by how standardized tests are created

Play-Based Arena Assessment

• The simultaneous evaluation of a child by multiple professionals of differing disciplines with all looking at the same time for the behaviours
• Allows a common sample of behaviour and immediate sharing of expertise and allows for Facilitator is engaged with the child and not all are necessarily needed, but have potential for all of them
  • They go back to the table and they discuss the results can talk about it immediately, specifically service disabilities and cannot move
  • It can happen in a hospital setting

What it involves

• Multi disciplinary
  • Work independently
  • Tools specific to the profession
  • Results presented to family but up to family pull it altogether
  • Not family friendly
• Interdisciplinary
  • Team members communicate
  • Family part of team
  • But still a problem-each coming from own disciplinary perspective
• Transdisciplinary
  • Parent central
  • Different disciplines work together
  • Maximum collaboration and communication

Rating Scales and Checklists

• What are they

Checklists

• Identify the skills to assess and starts with objectives or developmental milestones
• Create a list of behaviours for those skills, must relate to each other, part of the same domain or build on each other, organize sequentially (ascending/descending order of difficulty/acquisition) and create a visual
  • They tell you HOW well a child can do something and provides a qualitative perspective

Disadvantages

• Time consuming, integrating into a classroom routine, and cannot tell you specific information, can only tell you certain things and indicates quantitative judgement
• Problem is that checklists isolate behavioural/learning objectives
  • But learning is not a linear passive activity

Rating

• Tell you HOW well a child can do something, provides a qualitative perspective, numerical, descriptive categories, degree of behaviour, uses a scale (1-5) most common

• Weak inter-rater reliability: thinking about 4 is different then someone else 4 on a scale/ mild compared moderate different understanding of the two because it vague

• Disadvantages: Very subjective-rater error and bias

Ontario Human Rights Commission

• Recommendations

• Policy, carries out inquires

• Focus on strong

• Foundational word-reading strategies in early reading skills

• Literacy and phonics

• “Literacy goes beyond the ability to read and write proficiently. It includes the ability to access, take in, analyze and communicate information in a variety of formats, and interact with different forms of communication and technologies." (OHRC, 2022, p. 4)

• Phonics instruction should be part of a larger “evidence-based rich classroom language arts instruction"

  • Includes story telling, Drama, Text analysis, Book reading

• Drop the term: learning disability (IPRC)

• Replace with dyslexia (DSM)

• DSM 5

• A pattern of learning difficulties- e.g, word recognition, decoding, spelling"

• Neurobiological origin

• Learning difference, not disability

• (self-identification respected and recognized)

What should be done

• Early (and ongoing!) screening and identification of students at risk
• Use standarized tests
• 2x a year from KG to grade 2 (grade 3 is too late!)
• The curriculum becomes more intensive in grade 4, more reading
• Evidence-based, explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics BEGINNING IN KINDERGARTEN
• Psycho-educational assessments should be timely, clear, and transparent
• Limited use of accommodations and modifications
• Teacher training/screening tools
• Use of RTI (know this)

1. Tier 1 - Core classroom instruction
   • For all students
   • High-quality classroom teaching
   • Regular screening to catch early problems
2. Tier 2 - Targeted small group
   • For students who need extra help
   • Small group lessons focusing on specific skills
   • More frequent progress checks
3. Tier 3 – Intensive individual intervention
   • For students with serious learning needs
   • One-on-one, personalized instruction
   • May lead to special education evaluation

Alfred Binet

• IQ test part of the ability test
• Examine overall intellectual capacity
  • An achievement test
  • Limited Sampling
  • Subjectivity
  • Prediction of school performance
  • Beginning of IQ in 1900s in France
  • Measured mental age compared to chronological age
  • Tasked by French Government (late 1900s) to weed out “slower” learning children from classrooms
    • Put these children into other classrooms

What were the concerns

• Hard to separate out intelligence from school learning
• Noted that intelligence could not be reduced to a single score-it is much too complex
• Worried that teachers would use it to have “unruly” students removed from the classroom
• Worried about labels
• A prediction that comes about because of a belief a teacher has about a child
• Beignets approach to special education- belief in helping children learn (SES)
  • Physical exercise
• To increase attention span
• Exercises to create discipline
• Small classes 15-20 minutes

Family Dynamics

• Relationships and engagement
  • Assessments engage parents/family
  • "Parents and caregivers as primary sources of information” (p. 36)
  • Assessments involve communication with family
• Positive relationship
• Characteristics of family engagement
• Child care interactions

Why involve parents?

• Parents know children better than we do, more than we know and constantly watching children in natural setting helping them tell us a lot of things
• In Fact: Research shows that: Families are very reliable judges of their children's behaviour, even in areas in which they were traditionally thought to be unreliable (e.g., developmental level and communication skills) Gotta ask the right questions
• Additionally
  • Remember: intervention strategies need to be reinforced in the home
  • Disabled children are usually in intervention programs and parents need to involve themselves within the home
• Increases test validity: involve parents in test
  • Question on the final question about validity
• Parental Involvement
  • Traditionally: Ask questions about the child's history focused on development more recently.
  • Describe child's daily routine while you Are physically present during the assessment

Problems with older models

• Parents don't get a chance to weigh in on which tests are to be used
• Involvement limited to initial phase of assessment
• Not involved in what happens with results or how those results are interpreted
• In essence, the parental/caregiver roles are limited with few choices Effort to create tests that parents can use and watch children at play in the natural environment of the home
• Nippissing District Development Screen (every childcare center has this, and easy to use for parents)
  • Pull up from files
  • Routinely used
• Not standardized
• Ages & Stages Questionnaires

Assessments need to come out of parental/caregiver concerns and priorities

• Ask: What does the family hope to gain from the assessment?
• What the parents want for their child and asking the questions like what are they hope to gain from this assessment
• Professionals should not take over the assessment process
• They have the chose to be involved
• But not all parents avoid judgment
• Important part is that they have the choice to participate

Issues between parents and professionals:

1. The nature of the presenting concern
2. The need for treatment
3. The course of action

• 3 primary strategies for collaboration
• Background information
• Family goals? How to participate
• Involvement of others
• Determining context-why?
• Whats the plan

Questions to shape the assessment:

• Ask about what concerns the family has about child
• Ask what they would see come out of the assessment process

Questions about routines

• Kind of routines child engages in during the day
• Situations that appear hard for the child?
• Enjoyable activities for the child

Ensure active role for parents caregivers

• Share results mutually (allowing the parents to comment on the results)-ensure the parents trust me as professional and feel involved in the discussion

Annies lecture

• ISFP
• Family focused
• Part of early intervention programs and planning (not mandated)
• Meeting needs of BOTH family AND child
• Child's needs and family dynamics
• Child's needs NOT separate from family needs
• Developed by family, professionals, teachers
• Details; Why, What, Where
• BOTH IEPS and IFSPs include
• Goals/outcomes/expectations
• How progress will be assessed
• Services provided

ASD :

• What type of difficulties.
• persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts. Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity.
• Failure of normal back and forth conversation.
  • Reduced sharing of interests, emotions or affect.
• Failure to initiate or respond to social interactions.

Deficits in Nonverbal communicative behaviours used for social interaction

• Poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication
  • Abnormalities in eye contact and body language.
  • Deficits in understanding and use of gestures.
    • a lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication.

Deficits in developing, maintaining and understanding relationships

• Difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts.
• Difficulties in sharing imaginative play or in making friends.
  • Absence of interest in peers.
  • Gaining attention
  • Motivating pupils
  • Promoting social communication & social interaction
    • Structured teaching
  • Behaviour management.
  • Differentiated curriculum.
• Children with ASD need a support bot in and outside of the classroom.
• Resources are critical.

Problems with Diagnosis

• Lack of specialist support.
• Problems or delays with diagnoses-linked to funding linked to severity
• Insufficient human and financial resources.
• Limited speech and language therapy
• Lack of teacher training in autism.
• Inclusion does not work for all children with ASD depends on severity

Howard Gardner article:

• Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences argues that intelligence is not just one single ability, like IQ tests suggest
  • Instead, people have different kinds of intelligences — such as linguistic, logical, musical, spatial, bodily, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. Gardner believers education should recognize and support all types of intelligences, helping students learn in ways that match their strengths.
• Questions on the exam that will be in the boxes of the it 3-5 questions
• The 8 intelligences
• Questions related to what you would look at in the classroom when assessing logical mathematical intelligence? The 8 intelligences includes,
• Verbal Linguistic Intelligence
• Visual spatial intelligence
• Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence
• Musical Rhythmic
• Interpersonal
• Naturalist intelligence
• Link between assessment and teaching
• Assessment is an essential part of pedagogy