Assessment of Aptitude, Achievement,

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Assessment of Aptitude, Achievement, Learning
Disabilities
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Aptitude Assessment

• Purpose measure an examinees capacity for
  learning and to predict whether he or she would
  likely benefit from an educational or training
  program.
• Applications
• Academic Career Counseling.
• Selection Placement Decisions.

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American College Testing Program (ACT)

• Academic Tests
• English.
• Math.
• Reading.
• Science Reasoning.
• Standard Scores M 18 SD 6 (recent mean of
  college bound seniors 20-21)

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Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT)

• SAT I Reasoning Test, which includes
• Verbal Mathematical Sections.
• Standard Scores M 500 SD 100
• SAT II Subject Tests (e.g., History), which are
  used for both admission decisions determining
  course placement.
• Current examinees raw scores are compared to the
  raw scores obtained by the 1 million examinees
  who took the SAT in 1994. Previous examinees
  were compared to a 1941 standardization sample.

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Do ACT/SAT Tests Really Predict Academic
Performance?

• Technically, yes. But the relationship between
  aptitude test scores and college performance is
  only moderate.

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Hypothetical Relationship between ACT Scores GPA

• r .40
• r2 .16
• Y ACT(.073) 1.39
• Example Given an ACT score of 20, we would
  predict a GPA of 2.85.

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Validity of Admissions Tests for predicting
college performance

• ACT SATI have equal validity for predicting
  college performance.
• Prediction of Undergraduate GPA
• SAT (r ? .36) v. HSR (r ? .42).
• HSR SAT scores increases r to .50 to .60.
• Prediction of graduation from college
• SAT (r ? .33) v. HSR (r ? .29).
• Validity coefficients are higher when
  researchers correct for GPA unreliability and
  restriction of range.

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SAT I vs. SAT II(Geiser Studley, 2002)

• N 77,893 CA students.
• SAT-II scores were the best predictor of UGPA (r
  .25), followed by HSGPA (r .24), and SAT-I (r
  .18).
• SAT I scores did not enhance the prediction of
  UGPA beyond that predictable by SAT II scores
  HSGPA.
• The predictive validity of the SAT-II is less
  affected by SES than the SAT-I.

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Benefits of ACT or SAT

• Students are directly compared on the same
  standard or set of tasks.
• These tests do have modest predictive validity (r
  .30 to .50).
• Tests may identify underachievers who have the
  potential to succeed in college, but who did not
  do well in high school.

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Problems with Alternative Criteria

• Standards and grading policies vary from school
  to school (and teacher to teacher).
• Total GPA does not reflect quality and difficulty
  of courses completed.
• Curriculum differences across school systems.
• Grade inflation and other leniency errors.
• Nearly all letters of recommendation are
  laudatory and lack any predictive validity.

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Graduate Admissions Tests

• Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Verbal,
  Quantitative, Analytical Writing. Subjects
  tests are also available.
• Standard Scores M 500 SD 100
• Millers Analogies Test (MAT).
• Medical College Admission Test (MCAT).
• Law School Admissions Test (LSAT).
• Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT).

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Adaptive Testing

• Selection of subsequent test items is based upon
  how well examinee performed on previous items
  requires fewer items because examinee is not
  given items that are too easy or too difficult
  typically the test items are administered by
  computer.

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General Aptitude Tests

• Purpose (1) identify an examinees specific
  strengths weaknesses and (2) match an examinee
  to specific jobs or training programs.
• Examinees are assessed on several specific
  abilities, like mechanical reasoning, rather than
  a global attribute
• Unlike tests like the ACT that measure scholastic
  aptitude, these inventories focus more on real
  world abilities.

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Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)

• General Science
• Arithmetic Reasoning
• Word Knowledge
• Paragraph Comprehension
• Numerical Operations

• Coding Speed
• Auto Shop Information
• Mathematics Knowledge
• Mechanical Comprehension
• Electronics Information

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ONet (formerly General Aptitude Test Battery)

• Verbal Abilities.
• Arithmetic Reasoning.
• Computation.
• Spatial Ability.
• Form Perception
• Clerical Perception
• Motor Coordination
• Finder Dexterity
• Manual Dexterity

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Achievement Tests

• Purpose asses what an examinee has already
  learned as a result of education or other
  training experiences.

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Types of Achievement Tests

• Survey Achievement Batteries monitor students
  progress on basic educational domains from year
  to year ex. TerraNova or the Iowa Tests of Basic
  Skills/Educational Development.
• Individual Achievement Tests diagnostic
  evaluations ex. WIAT.
• Criterion-Referenced Achievement Tests evaluate
  whether a examinee has mastered certain material
  or a given academic standard has been met (e.g.,
  high school graduation exams).
• Specific Subject Tests for example, the exams
  you will take in this course.

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Lake Wobegon Effect

• Amazingly, most students and school districts
  score above average on norm-referenced
  achievement tests.
• How can this occur?
• Outdated norms students are performing better
  than older norm group.
• Cheating by teachers.
• Eliminating low-performing students from the test
  pool.

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No Child Left Behind Act

• Purpose increase the accountability of the
  public school system.
• All students in grades 3-8 must be annually
  assessed in reading math.
• States must develop standards objectives for
  educational achievement.

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• By the 2013-2014 school year, states must
  demonstrate that all of their students are
  proficient in basic academic skills.
• School systems that fail to meet the new
  standards will be labeled as deficient students
  in these schools may have the option of
  transferring to a higher performing school.

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Aptitude v. Achievement Tests

• Aptitude
• Purpose predict future performance.
• Predictive Validity.
• Evaluate more general competencies that may be
  innate or acquired in the distant past.

• Achievement
• Purpose assess current performance
• Content Validity.
• Evaluate more specific competencies that have
  been recently learned.

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What is a Learning Disability?

• Definition failure of an individual, despite
  adequate intelligence training, to master a
  certain academic skill (Sattler, 1998) or a
  severe discrepancy between IQ achievement
• Disabilities are believed to result from problems
  in the central nervous system (i.e., information
  processing problems).
• Need to rule out other explanations for low
  achievement, such as hearing impairments or
  emotional disturbance.