Academic Assessment

1
Academic Assessment

• Diverse Learners

2
Considerations for Multicultural Students

• Previous academic exposure
• Acculturation and language
• Previous life and academic experiences
• Steps must be taken so that students are not
  assigned to special education classes because of
  their lack of English language proficiency rather
  than because they have a disability (U.S. Dept
  of Ed., 2000).

3
Considerations for All Students

• Do sensory or communication impairments make test
  inaccessible or limit students from responding to
  questions?
• Do test materials or methods of responding limit
  ability to respond?
• Does the student know the examiner?
• Are instructions understood by student?
• Is the recording technique required of the
  student on the test familiar?

4
Normative-based Achievement Assumptions

• Student is like the normative sample.
• Student has had opportunity to learn
• Content measured
• Language used by the test
• Skills demanded of the test
• Test is measuring ability and not experience

5
Standards for Testing Individuals of Diverse
Language Backgrounds

• Testing practice designed to reduce threats to
  reliability and validity.
• Language proficiency should be determined prior
  to test administration.
• Language proficiency should be evaluated across
  different language tasks.
• Any linguistic modifications recommended by test
  publishers should be in the test manual

6
Standards for Testing Individuals of Diverse
Language Backgrounds

• When a test is recommended for this population,
  then developers should provide the info needed
  for test use and interpretation.
• When translating a test, describe methods used in
  establishing the adequacy of the translation and
  evidence for reliability and validity data for
  the translated tests scores.
• When an interpreter is used in testing, the
  interpreter should be fluent in both languages,
  should have expertise in translating,and should
  have a basic understanding of the assessment
  process.

7
Group Project

• Look at the tests described on pages 207-210.
• Describe the pros and cons of each test within
  the group.
• Consider which normative based test to give to a
  child with a 5th grader with L5 profile who has
  received bilingual education.

8
CBM Spanish Materials

• Brigance Diagnostic Assessment of Basic Skills,
  Spanish
• K-6
• Readiness, Speech, Word Recognition, Oral
  Reading, Reading, Comp., Word Analysis,
  Listening, Writing, Alphabetizing, Numbers and
  Computation, and Measurement
• DIBELS has a Spanish version that is like the
  English version. This can be found on the DIBELS
  website.

9
CBM Considerations

• Extent to which curriculum is culturally
  representative of the student.
• Students previous participation in bilingual
  education/ ESL
• Known or suspected sensory or communicative
  impairments
• Information on formal former education.
• How often has the child moved and how often does
  child attend school?

10
CBM Considerations

• Students level of acculturation
• English language proficiency
• What skills are needed to answer the items that
  are not related to item performance.
• Experiences outside of the school setting that
  support or detract from academic success.

11
Suggestions Non-English and Non-Spanish
Assessment

• Normative assessment in achievement is pretty
  much not possible.
• Informal methods or CBM methods should be
  utilized in combination with parent/ teacher
  interviews, class observations, and child
  interviews.

12
Written Expression Options

• Develop an age appropriate writing prompt (e.g.,
  I was walking down the street and suddenly I saw
  ).
• Have the child write a story based on this
  prompt.
• Have a translator given a similar prompt in the
  native language.
• Work with the translator to determine total
  number of words, grammar spelling, and
  understandability for BOTH language tasks.

13
Reading Assessments

• Obtain basal readers for different levels in
  English and in the other language
• Have the child read in each language.
• Score fluency by marking reading end point after
  1 min and 2 min.
• Ask the child to retell the story to indicate
  passage comprehension.
• Basic reading can be evaluated by the number of
  errors made while reading the passage.

14
Math Assessments

• Basic math direct translation of instructions
  and actual items from a normative test (do not
  use norms).
• Applied math direct translation of items from a
  normative test (do not use norms).
• Do an error analysis of types of problems and see
  if these carry across languages.