The relationships among kindergarten children's basic concept mastery, their self-predictions of concept mastery, and their teacher's predictions of concept mastery were investigated using items from the Bracken Basic Concept Scale (BBCS) Form A, screening test. Results indicated the BBCS score mean was significantly lower than both the teacher's prediction mean (p
<
.001) and the self-prediction mean (p < .001); the teacher's prediction mean and self-prediction mean did not differ. While overpredicting scores, teachers showed moderate discriminative abilities in differentiating good from poor students; the teachers' prediction scores and the children's mastery scores correlated significantly (r = .41, p = .001). The kindergarten children failed to display this discriminative ability. Because teachers displayed the ability to rank performance of these kindergarten-aged children, we conclude they are able to provide useful information to school-based assessment teams when gross rankings are required. On the other hand, we support collection of objective assessment data to prevent problems associated with overprediction by teachers for this age group. Finally, the children's tendency to overpredict is consistent with previous findings that young children lack realistic self-knowledge.
