Components & Types of Assessment methods
- 1. An individual psychological evaluation including general intelligence, instructional needs, learning strengths and weaknesses, and social emotional dynamics A thorough developmental, social, and academic history based on interviews with parents and student A physical examination including specific assessments that relate to vision, hearing, and health A classroom observation of the student in his or her current educational setting
- 2. An appropriate educational evaluation A behavioral assessment Speech and language evaluations, when appropriate Physical and/or occupational evaluations, when indicated Interviews with the student/parents and significant others in his or her life
- 3. OBSERVATIONS Observation: An assessment technique whereby one observes the student in his or her natural environments. Observing the student and his or her environment is an important part of any assessment process.
- 4. Observations in the classroom and in other settings where the student operates can provide valuable information about: Academic skills Motor skills Communication skills Social skills
- 5. 1. Nonsystematic observation: Observer simply watches the observer in his or environment and notes the behaviors, characteristics, and personal interactions that seem significant. 2. Systematic Observation: Here, the observer sets out to observe one or more precisely defined behaviors. The observer specifies observable events that define the behavior and then measures the behavior in a certain way.
- 6. Advantages-Get to see spontaneous behavior Disadvantages- (1) No control over the situations (2) Observer Bias
- 7. One source of error may come from the observer -- he or she must record accurately, systematically, and without bias. If his or her general impression of the student influences how he or she rates that student in regards to specific characteristics, the data will be misleading and inaccurate. This can be especially true if the student comes from a background that is different from the majority culture. In such cases, it is important that the observer have an understanding of, and a lack of bias regarding, the student's cultural or language group.
- 8. 1. Anecdotal Recording: The observer describes incidents or behaviors observed in a particular setting in concrete, narrative terms (as opposed to drawing inferences about feelings or motives). This type of record allows insight into cause and effect by detailing what occurred before a behavior took place, the behavior itself, and consequences or events that occurred after the behavior.
- 9. 2. Event Recording: The observer is interested in recording the number of times a specific behavioral event occurred (such as how many times the student hits or gets out of his or her seat). A tally sheet listing the behaviors to be observed and counted is useful; when the observer sees the behavior of interest, he or she can simply make a tick mark on the sheet. 3. Duration Recording: This method usually requires a watch or clock, so that a precise measurement of how much time a student spends doing something of concern to the teacher or assessment team (e.g., talking to others, tapping, rocking) can be recorded.
- 10. When observing the child in many different environments, you are conducting an Ecological Assessment Ecological assessment involves directly observing and assessing the child in the many environments in which he or she routinely operates. The purpose of conducting such an assessment is to probe how the different environments influence the student and his or her school performance.
- 11. Interview: An assessment technique conducted face to face (or by telephone) between an interviewer and an interviewee where recorded responses to questions are obtained.
- 12. Structured Interview: Interview whereby a predetermined set of questions is asked Unstructured Interview: Interview where predetermined questions are asked Most interviews combine both structured and unstructured interview questions
- 13. Personal Emotional Flexible
- 14. Time consuming “ Costly” Rapport between interviewer and interviewee Concerns with student’s language ability
- 15. Interviewing the student in question, his or her parents, teachers, and other adults or peers can provide a great deal of useful information about the student. Ultimately, an interview should be a conversation with a purpose with questions designed to collect information that relates to the observed or suspected disability of the child
- 16. Often, an initial part of the assessment process includes examining a student's work, either by selecting work samples that can be analyzed to identify academic skills and deficits, or by conducting a portfolio assessment, where folders of the student's work are examined.
- 17. Perhaps the most important type of assessment for the classroom teacher is the portfolio assessment. A portfolio is “a purposeful collection of student works that exhibits the student’s efforts, progress, and achievement in one or more areas.”
- 18. 1. Working portfolio-Teacher, student, and parents all contribute to the portfolio. Both works-in-progress and final product pieces are included.
- 19. 2. Showcase portfolio-The portfolio houses only the student’s best work and generally does not include works-in-progress. The student manages the portfolio and decides what to place in it. 3. Record keeping or Teacher portfolio-The portfolio houses student test papers and work samples maintained by the teacher. It contains work not selected by the student for inclusion in the showcase portfolio.
- 20. Test: A set of questions or tasks administered to an individual to determine knowledge or skills. The results are reported in one or more types of scores.
- 21. A norm-referenced test, also known as an NRT, is designed to compare student performance to that of other students. In special education, almost every norm-referenced test compares an individual student’s score against national averages.
- 22. Scores on norm-referenced tests are not interpreted according to an absolute standard or criterion (i.e., 8 out of 10 correct) but, rather, according to how the student's performance compares with that of a particular group of individuals.
- 23. Criterion referenced tests (CRTs) are scored according to a standard, or criterion, that the teacher, school, or test publisher decides represents an acceptable level of mastery. The test giver is interested what the student can and cannot do, rather than how his or her performance compares with those of other people.
- 24. Mastery- a level of performance on a criterion-referenced test that shows that a student has demonstrated the knowledge, skills, and abilities for a unit of instruction or subject area as defined by a predetermined standard. CRT are more concerned with “describing what a student can do” rather than “comparing” her performance to others.
- 25. Examples of criterion-referenced questions would be: Does Jane do 8th grade math computation problems with 85% accuracy? Did Joe get 90% of the questions correct on the social studies exam? In criterion-referenced assessment, the emphasis is on passing one or a series of questions.