General Interpretation Terminology Flashcards
(22 cards)
What is a standardized assessment?
A test given the same way to all participants.
What is a norm-referenced assessment?
A standardized test that compares an individual’s performance with others in the same norming group (age/grade).
What is a criterion-referenced assessment?
A test used to measure knowledge or skills, where the individual’s score is based on mastery of the material (e.g., curriculum-based assessment).
What is a raw score?
These are the actual scores that a person gets on a test (like the number of correct answers). They don’t mean much on their own without context because they don’t account for things like difficulty or comparison to others.
What is a scaled score?
A standardized score that is used when you need to compare scores across different versions of a test or across different forms of the same test.
What are the mean and standard deviation (SD) for scaled scores?
Mean = 10, SD = ±3.
What is a standard score?
Standard scores are used in norm-referenced assessment to compare one student’s performance on a test to the performance of other students her age. Standard scores give you an exact numerical representation of where you stand in terms of standard deviations from the mean (average).
What provides the clearest indication of a child’s subtest performance?
Scaled scores
Why should examiners not place too much reliance on subtest results?
The reliability of subtests is lower than that of composite scores, meaning interpretations based on subtests contain more error.
How should subtest scores be used in assessment?
They are useful for generating hypotheses or speculations about performance but should not be the primary basis for diagnosis or placement decisions.
What should important decisions about diagnosis and placement be based on?
The interpretation of composite scores rather than individual subtest scores.
What are the mean and standard deviation (SD) for standard scores?
Mean = 100, SD = ±15.
Where is the mean on a bell curve?
In the middle, at the 50th percentile.
What is standard deviation?
The quantified amount of variation in a set of data values—how spread out the numbers are around the mean.
When is it inappropriate to use an index score?
If there is a standard deviation difference of more than 3 between two subtest scores.
How do you calculate a standard deviation difference between two scaled scores?
Add up the difference between the two subtest scores and divide by 3.
What does percentile rank describe?
A person’s position compared to others of the same age/grade.
What does a percentile rank indicate?
The percentage of peers that the individual performed equal or better than.
Scores between __________ capture the middle two-thirds of the children tested. (Average)
85 and 115
What are age/grade equivalents?
An age or grade equivalent is simply the median raw score for a particular age or grade level.
Why are standard scores a more accurate representation of an examinee’s ability than age/grade equivalents?
Because they are based not only on the mean at a given age level but also on the distribution of scores.
What is a CBM?
Curriculum-Based Measurement
