Using Brief Assessments of Important Indicators to Inform School-Based Interventions and Practice

Abstract

Despite having a large number of readily available measures with strong psychometric properties, schools face barriers in implementing many of these tools. One logical candidate to explain limited practical utility of existing measures is their cost, both financial and time. Thus, the purpose of this special issue is to highlight several recently developed measures that hold promise for meeting the demand for brief, accurate, and useful educational assessments that can be used across the multiple systems of schools. The articles feature feasible and useful assessments that provide data at the school, classroom, and individual student levels. These measures consider the system-level aspects of implementation, directly address the feasibility aspects of screening, and avoid the historically-rooted assumptions that longer assessments are quality assessments. These articles push the science in new and positive directions with an emphasis on how brief and efficient tools can be part of the solution toward improving the academic and social emotional outcomes of youth.