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YOUNG CHILDREN
Interpreting Assessment Results:
Standardized Scores
Assessment Quality:
How to Determine if Assessments Meet our Needs
October 28, 2015
INTERPRETING ASSESSMENT
SCORES
Understanding how Standard Scores are Derived
BRIEF REVIEW:
ASSESSMENT SCORING
Standard scores have known measurement properties,
maximizing our ability to compare scores across
children
Standard scores you should know
Percentiles
Z scores
T Scores
(Stanines)
BRIEF REVIEW:
PERCENTILES
Percentiles are a type of standard score
Percentile for a score is the proportion of the sample of
individuals who scored at or below that score
Percentiles RANK individuals based on their scores
They form an ORDINAL scale
BRIEF REVIEW:
COMMON PERCENTILE DIVISIONS
Quartiles
Divides the whole group into 4 groups with the same number of children in
each
Deciles
Divides the whole group into 10 groups with the same number of children in
each
1st Quartile
2nd Quartile
3rd Quartile
4th Quartile
76th to 100th
percentile
Decile 1
Decile 2
Decile 3
Decile 4
Decile 5
Decile 6
Decile 7
Decile 8
Decile 9
Decil 10
1st 10th
11th 20th
21st30th
31st 40th
41st 50th
51st 60th
61st
70th
71st 80th
81st 90th
91st 100th
percentile
percentile
percentile
percentile
percentile
percentile
percentile
percentile
percentile
percentile
BRIEF REVIEW:
PERCENTILES
Which children are in each quartile according to
their vocabulary scores?
1st Quartile
2nd Quartile
3rd Quartile
4th Quartile
76th to 100th
percentile
Ella
Kaleb
Jacob
Betty
Felix
Garret
Ally
Harry
Lola
David
Isaiah
Charlie
BRIEF REVIEW:
DETERMINING PERCENTILE SCORES FROM
STANDARDIZED TESTS
Score test to get raw score
Compare raw scores to normed tables to get
percentile score
Typically based on child age, and sometimes gender
BRIEF REVIEW:
PERCENTILES
1st Quartile
2nd Quartile
3rd Quartile
4th Quartile
76th to 100th
percentile
Ella (17)
Kaleb (72)
Jacob (120)
Betty (235)
Felix (24)
Garret (86)
Ally (131)
Harry (354)
Lola (54)
David (109)
Isaiah (194)
Charlie (404)
PERCENTILES
What are the limitations of percentile scores?
Percentiles can rarely tell you whether children are
doing good or bad overall, or how much better or worse
one child is doing than another
Because they are ORDINAL RANKINGS
VARIANCE
How dispersed
are our scores
around the
balance point of
our data?
Percent of individuals
in the sample
Lowest
Scores
Highest
/(N-1) = Variance
Find the square root of this new sum
2 /(N-1) = Standard Deviation
Number of Children
A?
B?
C?
Vocabulary Scores
D?
E?
Number of Children
A?
B?
C?
Vocabulary Scores
D?
E?
Number of Children
17
25.25
150
274.75
Vocabulary Scores
Where are each of our 12 toddlers on this scale?
Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009
399.51
Number of Children
Ally
Jacob
David
Garret
Felix Kaleb
Ella
Lola
25.25
Isaiah
150
Betty
Harry
274.75
Vocabulary Scores
Which of our 12 toddlers are you worried about?
Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009
Charlie
399.5
5 MINUTE BREAK
SELF-AWARENESS &
SELF-ACCEPTANCE BREAK
Z SCORES
Converts a raw score into the number of standard
deviations that the score lies from the mean of the
distribution
Z scores are created by subtracting the mean from the
score and dividing the difference by the SD
Z scores can be created for variables that are not
normally distributed, but interpreting these scores
can be difficult
Z-SCORE EXAMPLE
If the mean = 150 and the SD = 100, a score of 250 has
a z score of 1.
What is the z score for a score of 225?
Z = 0.75
Z-SCORE EXAMPLE
What is the z-score for Bettys vocabulary score?
What is the z-score for Ellas vocabulary score?
What is the z-score for Charlies vocabulary score?
PERCENTILES
Which children are in each quartile?
1st Quartile
2nd Quartile
3rd Quartile
4th Quartile
76th to 100th
percentile
Ella
Kaleb
Jacob
Betty
Felix
Garret
Ally
Harry
Lola
David
Isaiah
Charlie
How spread out the scores are around the balancing point
VARIANCE
T SCORES
A T score is similar to a z score, except that the mean
is always 50 and the SD is always 10
Thus, T scores represent a rescaling of z scores
To calculate a T score, compute the z score and then
multiple Z by 10 and add 50
T = 10z + 50
If Z-score = 1.2, then T-score = ?
(1.2*10) + 50 = 62
T-SCORE EXAMPLE
What is the T-score for Bettys vocabulary score?
What is the T-score for Ellas vocabulary score?
What is the T-score for Charlies vocabulary score?
Vocabulary Scores
Which of our 12 toddlers have a t-score lower than 30?
Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009
Based on their vocabulary scores, how would you group our 12 toddlers
for language curriculum?
Child
Ella
Felix
Lola
Kaleb
Garret
David
Jacob
Ally
Isaiah
Betty
Harry
Charlie
Vocabulary
17
24
54
72
86
109
120
131
194
235
354
404
Rank
12th
11th
10th
9th
8th
7th
6th
5th
4th
3rd
2nd
1st
Quartile
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
3
4
4
4
Zscore
1.06
1.01
0.77
0.63
0.51
0.33
0.24
0.15
0.35
0.68
1.64
2.04
Tscores
39
40
42
44
45
47
48
48
54
57
66
70
STANINES
Abbreviation of STAndard and NINE
Similar to quartiles and deciles in that each score
falls into a category
Distribution is divided into 9 categories, with each
category being .5 SD wide (except for the first and last
stanine, which, at least theoretically, are infinite)
The 5th stanine (the one in the middle) extends from .25 Z to .25 Z.
Stanines are used to categorize performance on some
types of tests
STANINES
MEASUREMENT QUALITY:
MAKING GOOD CHOICES
CHOOSING MEASURES
Purposeful:
Make sure the assessment will answer your question
Use more than one measure if necessary
Adequate:
Make sure the assessment is of good quality: valid
and reliable
Appropriate:
Make sure the assessment is appropriate for your
children
MEASUREMENT QUALITY TO BE
CONTINUED
Next week we will address:
Reliability
Validity
Sensitivity
Specificity
Appropriateness
Usefulness
WRAP-UP
Readings:
Split readings between group members:
Preparatory Activities:
Assignments Due: