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Elementary school teachers' opinions regarding the purposes and interpretation of score reports from standardized achievement test batteries
Abstract
Elementary school teachers serve a key role in the use and interpretation of standardized achievement test batteries (SATBs). If this role is to be properly exercised, teachers must be willing and able to use score information from such tests. Evidence suggests that teachers may not be skilled in making the interpretations that psychometricians intend from SATB score reports. To learn what purposes teachers believe SATB score reports appropriately serve, and what contents and formats teachers find useful in these reports, a survey research study was conducted. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 671 elementary school teachers from Texas, Illinois, and Massachusetts, focusing on the purposes of SATB score reports in general, the purposes of specific formats and types of score reports presented in the questionnaire, and interpretations of the sample score reports. Background information about the respondents was gathered. Of particular interest was the amount of testing-related training they had experienced. A relationship between amount of testing-related training and teachers' opinions and interpretations of test score reports was hypothesized. Respondents generally approved of the use of SATB score reports for certain purposes, especially those that had no permanent consequences for students and no external evaluative implications for the classroom. Teachers disapproved of the use of SATB score reports for student grading, promotion/retention decisions, and teacher evaluation. Other proposed uses were moderately approved. Respondents were equally supportive of numerical and graphical formats for a class-level report, but strongly preferred a numerical/pictorial version of an individual student score report (i.e., displaying subscores as sets of confidence bands) to a narrative version. Teachers' interpretations of score reports generally did not agree with strict psychometric interpretations. This lack of a psychometric perspective was found regardless of the amount of training in testing issues the respondents had experienced. The author concludes with recommendations for action regarding the design of score reports to meet teachers' needs and psychometricians' intentions more effectively, the training of teachers to match their professional demands, and further exploration of this topic through qualitative research methods.
Subject Area
Educational tests & measurements|Elementary education|Teacher education|Educational evaluation
Recommended Citation
Murphy, Edward Joseph, "Elementary school teachers' opinions regarding the purposes and interpretation of score reports from standardized achievement test batteries" (1992). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9305872.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9305872