HDFS 421: ASSESSMENT OF

YOUNG CHILDREN
Interpreting Assessment Results:
Standardized Scores
Assessment Quality:
How to Determine if Assessments Meet our Needs
October 28, 2015

GOALS FOR TODAY

Define standard deviation in your own words
Know how to calculate a standard deviation
Use standard deviation to describe scores
Calculate and interpret z-scores and T-scores
Define terms related to assessment quality:
reliability, validity, specificity, sensitivity
Feel prepared to complete Lab 6 (Cancelled!)
Know what you need to do INSTEAD of Lab 6

VISUAL SYLLABUS: MAJOR CONCEPTS OF ASSESSMENT

AND THEIR

RELATIONSHIPS TO EACH OTHER

ACTIVITIES FOR TODAY

Lecture: Introduction to Standard Deviation
Application: Calculate & Interpret Standard
Deviations
Lecture: Introduction to Z-Scores & T-Scores
Application: Calculate & Interpret Z-Scores & TScores
Discussion: What makes an assessment high
quality?
Assess our Goals
Preview Next Week

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)

Other types of scores

Age and Grade Equivalents

Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009

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

Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009

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

1st to 25th percentile

26th to 50th percentile

51st to 75th percentile

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

1st to 25th percentile

26th to 50th percentile

51st to 75th percentile

76th to 100th
percentile

Ella

Kaleb

Jacob

Betty

Felix

Garret

Ally

Harry

Lola

David

Isaiah

Charlie

Which children are you worried about?

What are the limitations of percentile
scores?

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

Interpret the meaning of the score as compared

to the population of children with whom the test
was standardized

BRIEF REVIEW:
PERCENTILES

QUESTIONS ABOUT LAB 5?

What are the limitations of percentile scores?

Percentile scores only give you a rank
Can we assume that all children in the 4th quartile are doing
well?
Can we assume that all children in the 1st quartile are doing
poorly?
Can we assume that children within the same quartile have
similar scores to one another?

1st Quartile

2nd Quartile

3rd Quartile

4th Quartile

1st to 25th percentile

26th to 50th percentile

51st to 75th percentile

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

We need a type of score that tells us how children are

doing in comparison to one another, and to the whole
group
We need scores on an INTERVAL scale
We need to know how the scores are dispersed

VARIANCE
How dispersed
are our scores
around the
balance point of
our data?

HOW DO WE FIGURE OUT HOW

DISPERSED OUR SCORES ARE?
We need to know how much variability there is in
the scores, how dispersed they are from the
mean, on average.
We need to measure the AVERAGE DISTANCE
between the mean and the childrens scores
Average distance from the mean = standard deviation
Average
>
Standard
Distance
>
Deviation

Percent of individuals
in the sample

Lowest

Scores

Highest

Where are the scores of MOST of the individuals?

FIND THE AVERAGE DISTANCE OF THE

SCORES FROM THE MEAN
Find the MEAN of the scores:

M=
/N
Subtract the MEAN from each score: X-M
Square each new score (X-M)2
2
Sum all of these squared scores
Divide this sum by the number of scores minus 1

2

/(N-1) = Variance
Find the square root of this new sum
2 /(N-1) = Standard Deviation

LETS TRY IT!

Determine the mean, variance, and standard
deviation for the vocabulary of 12 toddlers in
your class.
D2L > Course Content Week by Week > Oct 21 >
Learning Supports & Activities > Determining
Variance and Standard Deviation

Number of Children

RANGE, STANDARD DEVIATION,

AND INTERPRETATION OF SCORES

A?

B?

C?
Vocabulary Scores

D?

E?

What are the values of A through E for our toddlers

vocabulary scores?

Number of Children

RANGE, STANDARD DEVIATION,

AND INTERPRETATION OF SCORES

A?

B?

C?
Vocabulary Scores

D?

E?

What are the values of A through E for our toddlers

vocabulary scores?

Number of Children

RANGE, STANDARD DEVIATION,

AND INTERPRETATION OF SCORES

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

RANGE, STANDARD DEVIATION,

AND INTERPRETATION OF SCORES

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

STANDARDIZED SCORES THAT USE

STANDARD DEVIATIONS
Z-Scores
T-Scores
StaNines

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

Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009

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

What is the z score for a score of 375?

Z = 2.25

What is the z score for 75?

Z = -0.75

Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assesment, Spring 2009

LETS TRY IT!

Determine the z-scores for the 12 toddlers in your
class.
D2L > Course Content Week by Week > Oct 21 >
Learning Supports & Activities > Determining ZScores & T-Scores

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?

Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assesment, Spring 2009

MORE ABOUT Z SCORES

The mean of a distribution of z scores is always 0,
with a SD of 1.
Thus, z scores are normalized to the SD of the original
variable

Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009

PERCENTILES
Which children are in each quartile?
1st Quartile

2nd Quartile

3rd Quartile

4th Quartile

1st to 25th percentile

26th to 50th percentile

51st to 75th percentile

76th to 100th
percentile

Ella

Kaleb

Jacob

Betty

Felix

Garret

Ally

Harry

Lola

David

Isaiah

Charlie

Which children were you worried about?

Which children are you worried about now?
What are the limitations of percentile
scores?

WHY IS DISPERSION IMPORTANT?

Why do we need to know the range?
What can the range tell us about an individual childs
score?

Why do we need to know how our data are

dispersed?
Why do we need to know the standard deviation?
How does a standard deviation help us to interpret
childrens scores on an assessment?

UNDERSTANDING THE MEANING OF A

SCORE
To understand a score, we need to understand its
relationship to other scores on the same assessment
What do we need to know about these other scores?
How low and how high they go
RANGE

What score is most common

MODE

What the middle point is

MEDIAN

What the balancing point is

MEAN

How spread out the scores are around the balancing point
VARIANCE

The average distance from the balancing point

STANDARD DEVIATION

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

If Z-score = -.75, then T-score = ?

(-.75*10) + 50 = 42.5

Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009

LETS TRY IT!

Determine the T-scores for the 12 toddlers in
your class.
D2L > Course Content Week by Week > Oct 21 >
Learning Supports & Activities > Determining ZScores & T-Scores

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?

Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assesment, Spring 2009

CORRESPONDENCE OF PERCENTILES, Z-SCORES, & TSCORES

Vocabulary Scores
Which of our 12 toddlers have a t-score lower than 30?
Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009

WHY USE T SCORES IF THEY ARE JUST RESCALED Z

SCORES?
T scores are always positive, which makes them easier
to understand for many people
A T score <20 or >80 would be very unusual because
those indicate a score more than 3 SD from the mean,
which occurs in less than .5% of the population

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

Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009

STANINES

Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009

AGE AND GRADE EQUIVALENTS

A raw score corresponds to a chronological age or
grade when a skill is acquired
Used as a relative measure of assessment
Critiques
Unequal standards across content areas and grades
(Bennett, 1982)
Encourages comparison of students to inappropriate
reference groups
Not good for diagnostic placements (Bracken, 1988)

Modified from L. Skibbe, Introduction to Assessment, Spring 2009

WHEN SHOULD YOU BE CONCERNED ABOUT A

CHILDS SCORES?
This depends on the assessment, specifically how it is
normed, and what type of behavior is assessed
If it is a normed assessment, then rely on the
guidelines provided in the assessment:
If the assessment is valid, the scores provided should relate
to meaningful differences in childrens performance and
predict their outcomes.

General rule: When a score is 2 or more standard

deviations from the mean, it is meaningfully different.

MEASUREMENT QUALITY:
MAKING GOOD CHOICES

WHAT MAKES A GOOD QUALITY

ASSESSMENT?
What qualities make an assessment high quality?
What qualities will YOU look for in an assessment
tool when you have to choose one?
Think very practically about this question.

Write 4 lists on the white boards:

1. Qualities all assessments must have to be good quality
2. Additional qualities for assessments of children with
special needs
3. Additional qualities for children who are English
Language Learners
4. Additional qualities for infants and toddlers

HOW WOULD YOU CHOOSE AN

ASSESSMENT TOOL?
What makes an assessment a good assessment,
and what makes some assessments better than
others?
What qualities are necessary to use an
assessment with children with special needs?
When is it appropriate to use norm-referenced
assessments to inform decisions about children with
special needs?

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

Know these terms

(list, define, describe, identify)
Review Benner & Grimm
Chapter 6, pp 139-152

WRAP-UP

SHIFTING LABS 5-8

Lab 5 is due October 30
Lab 6 is CANCELLED
INSTEAD: Formative assessment of Dr. V due Nov 6

Lab 7 is due November 13

Lab 8 is CANCELLED

PREVIEW OF NEXT WEEK

NOVEMBER 4
Topics:

Measurement Quality (Continued)

Reliability, validity, sensitivity, specificity, usefulness, appropriateness

How We Assess III: Performance & Portfolios

Child study
IEPs & IFSPs
Portfolios
Intro to Lab 7: Scoring & Interpreting T-Scores

Readings:
Split readings between group members:

A: Benner & Grim Ch 8: Portfolio, Work Sampling, & Goal Attainment

Scaling
B: Losardo & Syverson Ch. 6: Performance Assessment
C: Losardo & Syverson Ch. 7: Portfolio Assessment

Preparatory Activities:

Know your measurement quality terms: List, define, and describe

Prepare to teach your classmates about portfolios or performance
assessment

Assignments Due:

Formative assessment of Dr. V Look for announcement on D2L

Start working on Lab 7