Assessment for Effective Intervention

Methodological concerns related to the evaluation of early childhood special education programs are discussed using a recently published intervention study as a point of reference. The conservative nature of early intervention research and the role of statistical and measurement assumptions in that research are identified, as are significant changes in evaluation research currently underway in the field. These changes indicate dissatisfaction with research designs and analyses traditionally used in evaluation research and increased emphasis on evaluation studies directed toward an understanding of the interpretation of intervention outcomes.

As a result of early events in the testing movement, the value of intelligence testing was extended beyond its intent and the psychologist was not answerable to any measure of accountability. More recently, the value of testing in the decision-making process has been challenged in the courts and is now restricted by legislative mandate. A resistance to the issue of accountability has grown among psychologists and others who assess intelligence. Continued resistance to the extant mandate may lead to an even more undesirable alternative to accountability—the demise of the standardized test.

Current spelling assessment practices, including formal and informal instruments plus promising procedures, were reviewed. First, six individually administered standardized tests that are presently available to special educators and diagnosticians were examined. Second, informal procedures were grouped into two categories: Inventories and criterion-referenced tests, and error analysis. Each informal procedure was analyzed in terms of specific advantages and disadvantages. Finally, two particularly promising procedures, miciodiagnostics and developmental spelling, were reviewed.

Assessment data play an important role in educational decision making. All too often we act as if we have total confidence in the test scores we interpret, though we know that error of measurement is always present. Three procedures that help to determine the degree of confidence we can place in any raw score are discussed in this article (a) computing the standard error of measurement, (b) computing the estimated true score, and (c) constructiong conference intervales. These three procedures are easy to and require only mathematical skills individuals. The process of pupil assessment should these three simple procedures.