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Are education tests reliable

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  • 27-11-2017 12:20pm
    #1
    mariaalice
    Registered Users Posts: 12,503 ✭✭✭✭


    Could a resource teacher or the like answer this its something I have wondered about.

    My spelling is poor yet I could read at a very young age. How could someone learn to read and but not learn to spell are they not intertwined.

    When my oldest was in second class the school sent her for some tests because of some difficulty the teacher perceived he to have. I went called in to go over the results with the teacher and the person doing the tests it was all a bit vague but indicated she had some difficulties, she was never offered any extra help.

    Lo and behold she did grand in school and has a science based degree.

    My question are tests reliable as an indicator of education or behaviour difficulties.


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    #2
    byhookorbycrook
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 12,498 Mod ✭✭✭✭byhookorbycrook


    No such thing are a resource teacher any more, we all all special education teachers now :)

    No, tests are not 100% reliable, though constantly used as a tool to berate teachers and teaching through the likes of PISA etc.Since standardised test results have started to be sent home as part of the end of year school report in primary, many parents have taken the tests to be the equivalent of the Leaving Cert. and place far too much store in them.

    They are a snap shot of how a child performed at a particular task on a particular date and should never be taken in isolation but rather with the professional opinion of the teacher with evidence gathered over a period of time. It's technically possible for a child to score at least 20% correctly in multiple choice tests. Another issue is that some tests are not standardised to the Irish context and can give quite skewed results too. I'm in special ed for quite a long time and we always look at the child's full profile rather than one single test score. But if a child is scoring highly in tests like the VRT (Verbal Reasoning Test) yet doing quite badly in successive reading tests, it will throw up flags.

    You can read well and not spell well and vice versa, odd as it sounds. We have found that children with dyslexia with a very good IQ can overcome the reading difficulties but that the spelling gets them. Was it a psycho-educational assessment your child did?


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    #3
    mariaalice
    Registered Users Posts: 12,503 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    She is in her thirties now so I don't remember but I suspect the teacher though she had ADD or some learning difficulty but it all sounded vague to us, she was always inclined to very active and couldn't stay quiet something she grew out of as a teenager.


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    #4
    byhookorbycrook
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 12,498 Mod ✭✭✭✭byhookorbycrook


    Unusual to have a child be assessed for ADD etc. if the parents couldn't see any issues.


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    #5
    mariaalice
    Registered Users Posts: 12,503 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    byhookorbycrook wrote: »
    Unusual to have a child be assessed for ADD etc. if the parents couldn't see any issues.

    I did not think it was an issue but the teaches did ask our permission, she was the oldest so I had no experience of other children so though they were all like that I have nothing against the teacher or the school for doing it its just I always wonder about those tests and how much value they were or are.


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    #6
    byhookorbycrook
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 12,498 Mod ✭✭✭✭byhookorbycrook


    The assessment a psychologist would be very different to the tests done by the classroom teacher.I would have expected a psychologist to observe the child in class and in the yard for ADD etc. but years back, that mightn't have been the case- simply because mere paper tests don't give the full picture, as we already discussed.


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    #7
    evolving_doors
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,812 ✭✭✭✭evolving_doors


    For reading I'd suggest you're compensating very quickly (in-spite of your spelling difficulties).
    I've seen students with dyslexia read out passages with a lot of their own substituted phrases, their brain just skipped any tricky words and substituted another thing to keep the context 'correct'. They often didn't realise they were doing it either.

    It's the same as putting some tricky music in front of a seasoned piano player, they'll compensate in a split second based on prior knowledge.

    The picture below has a few spelling mistakes but our brain figures it out after a few seconds.

    visionnew-041.png


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    #8
    byhookorbycrook
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 12,498 Mod ✭✭✭✭byhookorbycrook


    A friend once taught a child with dyslexia. The child read an entire A4 page of text correctly. Teacher then asked the child a question based on what the child had read. The child answered that they read the words, not the story and could they read it again so they could read the story.
    My point is dyslexia is complicated, down the road, it will be seen as an umbrella title with many different aspects.


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