A parent reports to another parent, "I just had Johnny tested. He's reading at the 11th grade level even though he's in fifth grade!" Or "I'm desperate. Billy should be in an LD class! He's in the ninth grade but he is reading at a 4.2 grade level. " Sound familiar? In this article, Dr. Ronald Berk describes the dangers of using grade equivalency scores.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Angoff, W.H.1971. Scales, norms, and equivalent scores. In Educational measurement (2nd ed.), ed. R.L. Thorndike.Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education.
2.
Beggs, D.L. and Hieronymus, A.N.1968. Uniformity of growth in the basic skills through the school year and during the summer. Journal of Educational Measurement5:91-97.
3.
Flanagan, J.C.Units, scores, and norms. 1951. In Educational measurement, ed. E.F. Lindquist.Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education .
4.
Gates, A.I. and MacGinitie, W.H.1965. Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests, teacher's manual (Survey D). New York: Teachers College Press.
5.
Hieronymus, A.N., Lindquist, E.F. and Hoover, H.D.1978. lowa Tests of Basic Skills, teacher's guide (Forms 7/8) . Boston: Houghton-Mifflin .
6.
Horst, D.P.1976. What's bad about grade-equivalent scores, ESEA Title I evaluation and reporting system. Technical Report No. 1. Mountain View, California: RMC Research Corporation.
7.
Horst, D.P., Tallmadge, G.K. and Wood, C.T.1974. Measuring achievement gains in educational projects. RMC Report UR-243. Los Altos, California: RMC Research Corporation.
8.
Linn, R.L.1981. Measuring pretest-posttest performance changes . In Educational evaluation methodology: the state of the art , ed. R.A. Berk.Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins University Press.
9.
Reynolds, C.R. in press. The Fallacy of "Two-Years Below Grade Level for Age" as a Diagnostic Criterion for Reading Disorders. Journal of School Psychology.
10.
Salvia, J. and Ysseldyke, J.E.1981. Assessment in special and remedial education (2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton-Mifflin .
11.
Williams, T.B.1980. The distributions of NCE, percentile, and grade equivalent scores among twelve nationally standardized tests. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston. ATP
