Boehm Test of Basic Concepts Preschool Version - Essay Example

INSTRUMENT CRITIQUE I. Identification of measure a- Boehm Test of Basic Concepts Preschool Version b- s Ann E. Boehm c- Publisher: The Psychological Corporation and, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. d- Date (s) of publication: 1986 e- Materials available (forms, levels, parts, kits) and costs: Boehm- Preschool Manual, Picture Book, Individual Record Form; Child’s Performance Summary II. Description of measure A. General type The Preschool version of the Boehm Test of Basic Concept is intended to find out how well a child has understood and is able to describe things around them. The test is an individual measure of a child’s knowledge of 26 basic relational concepts which would later help them understand what is being taught to them in school. These relational concepts relate to people or objects such as size, direction position in space, quantity and time. In the 52 test questionnaire, two items per concept, and which also includes 5 warm-up items, the child is shown a picture related to the item and the teacher asks a question related to it. The child is expected to reply by pointing to the portion of the picture. The teacher will provide help only for the warm-up questions and the scores are recorded in the record form. The test is discontinued if the child scores “0” in more than two of the last four warm-up items. For the 52 test questions no help is provided by the teacher and only the question written in the test is asked. The question is repeated if requested by the child. The response given by the child is recorded in the record form and in the end of the test the total score is arrived at. On the whole the Boehm Test of Basic Concept helps to check concepts which the child has still not understood and thus it helps the teacher to guide the child in a better manner. B. Intended test population The Boehm Test of Basic Concept is administered to preschool children who are three to 5 years of age as by this age children should have a grasp about the concepts which have been included in the test. However, the manual does add that older children who have special educational needs can also be tested for their knowledge in these concepts and hence it could be used for kindergarten and first and second-grade children (Ouellette, 1988). C and D. Administration and Time (and recommended group sizes) The Boehm Test of Basic Concept is an individual test and not conducted in groups as the main purpose of the test is to individually assess the learning ability of every child. However, there is no evidence to support the statement that children who took the test individual fared better than when in groups (Ouellette, 1988). The test is generally administered in a single session spanning 15 minutes, however in the case of less attentive children it could be conducted in two sessions. As some children might be anxious before taking a test, examiners are advised to talk to the child and put them at ease and also encourage the child during the initial testing phase. E. Stimulus items The entire set of 52 items and the five warm-up items in the Picture Book is shown to the child. The book is placed with the picture facing the child and the question facing the teacher. The teacher can either sit across facing the child or next to the child. All the pictures shown to the child are reproduced in the Individual Record Form along with the concept and a score column. The objects in each picture that correspond to the right answer are marked with an “X”. The examiner circles the objects pointed by the child in response to the question and if the response is correct the score is “1” and if wrong it is “0”. In case the child does not respond the examiner marks “NR” in the score column for that item. For the warm-up items the scoring is the same except if the child gets a help from the examiner and then gives the right answer, the score will be “1-H” F. Administration procedures The Boehm test has been developed for the use of those concerned with early childhood development such preschool teachers, psycho educational specialists and other special educators. Those administering the test are expected to familiarize themselves with the test material, which includes the Boehm-Preschool Manual, Picture Book and the Individual Record Form, through practice administration of the test. People who have prior experience in such testing would be able to administer the test after one or two practice sessions while those who are relatively less experienced would require formal training by testing supervisors. When confident of administering the test examiners begin with filling the background information of every child such as their date of birth and age and date of testing in the front cover of the Record Form. The examiner then begins the test by showing the pictures to the child and asking them corresponding questions and the responses are entered in the Record Form simultaneously. At the end of the test the examiner enters the scores for each response and calculates the concept score for the two concept items and total score for the whole test. G.- I. Scoring, Interpretation and Recording procedures All the examiners involved in the testing process need to study the scoring pattern and for those who have less experience in administering such tests the training supervisors should also include discussions on the scoring procedures. All the scoring for the warm-up and test questions is done in the record form. For the 5 warm-up items if the child gives a correct response then the examiner marks “1” in the box next to the item; if the child answers correctly but with help from the examiner, then it is marked as “1-H” and if the child answers incorrectly then the examiner marks “0” in the box. For the test questions, the scoring will be “1” for the correct answer and “0” for the wrong answer. The examiner will not provide any form of help to the child for the test questions. In case the child points to the correct as well as other incorrect answers the score will be “0.” As there are two questions for every item, the scores obtained for the pair of items pertaining to one concept is first calculated as the concept score. If both the answers are correct the score for that concept is “2” and if only one answer is right then the score is “1”. Thus 26 concept scores are calculated and they are summed to yield the total score for the whole test. Finally, all the scores calculated are checked again for correctness by the examiner. The entire process is manual and hence it is essential to follow the guidelines so that nothing is missed out. In order to aid in the interpretation of results a summary of the child’s performance needs to be completed in the record form. This summary includes 4 sections which collectively help to understand the results of the test. The first is the concept mastery section which decides how well the child is familiar with the concept based on the scores and those with a concept score of 2 are considered to have a good understanding about the concept. While it is difficult to interpret those with a score of 1 as they might have even simply guessed the answer, children with a score of 0 are generally considered not familiar with the concept. In the second section the examiner compares the total scores obtained by a child to the normative data of the Boehm Preschool which is a standardization sample. The total score of the child is expressed as percentile equivalents with respect to the standard samples. In addition the T-score corresponding to the percentile equivalent can also be included in the report. In the next section, optional error analysis, a set of antonyms which often confuse children are provided and the examiner circles the antonym response given by the child for each concept. And in the final section the general behavior and attitude of the child while taking the test is noted by the examiner. This summary can also be transferred to a class record form in which the name and concept scores of every child in the class are noted. This would help teachers to identify the concepts which many children are unfamiliar with and group learning activities can be based on these concepts. III. Support for measure A. Item Selection Research literature, interaction with teachers and surveys of curriculum materials were also used for the item selection process. From earlier studies it was decided that children point out the objects in the picture rather then write them down and also no significant difference was observed when concrete objects were used instead of pictures. Additionally previous research also points out that between the ages of 2 to 6 children acquire and understand many words and hence this would be the right time to measure this ability of a child and see how the child fares. Further the tape recordings of teacher talk taken from kindergarten to second grade revealed that they use more than 70% of the concept terms from the Boehm Preschool, which makes it relevant to test the basic concept knowledge of children in preschool. Other selection measures which were adopted include curriculum surveys of concept materials used in kindergarten and grade 1. Based on all the above sources 40 different concepts and 110 concept items were used for a tryout testing in which children in preschool up to 4 year olds from various parts of the country were enrolled in experimental programs. The review of the tryout testing was done by a panel of educational specialists and finally the 26 concepts with 2 items in each were shortlisted for standardization. The standardization of the Boehm Preschool was done with children aged between 3 to 5 years from four major regions of the U.S. the sample was also stratified based on their race, region and educational background and percent comparisons involving the above three variables were reported. Studies have also been conducted with children from high, middle and low economic status and they have found that performance difference does exists between children coming from high and low economic backgrounds (Ouellette, 1988). B. Validity evidence In order to ascertain the validity of the test studies were conducted to determine both content and concurrent validity. Content validity studies ensured that the concepts included are those which are frequently encountered by children in classrooms and the concurrent validity compared the performance between this test and other similar tests. And in addition to normal children those with language-delayed problems were also subjected to the Boehm Preschool and as expected the mean scores of these children were low compared to normal children of the same age. Thus the validity of the test among both normal and special children was ascertained. C. Reliability Evidence The Boehm Preschool was subjected to two types of reliability tests, internal consistency and test-retest reliability using statistical techniques. The internal consistency measure was calculated using coefficient alpha representing the degree to which all items contributed to the measurement of similar abilities, split-half coefficients which compared the consistencies between one half of a test with the other half and the standard error of measurement by which the zone around which a child’s score remained 95% of the time was estimated. In the test-retest reliability testing a sub-sample of the standardization children was made to undertake the Boehm Preschool twice with an interval of 7 to 10 days. The reliability coefficients thus estimated reflected a good stability in the scoring. IV. Reviewer’s overall judgments of the measure The Boehm Preschool test of Basic Concepts is a good tool to ascertain children’s knowledge in basic concepts. Only when a child is able to understand the basic concepts they will be able to apply thinking and reasoning skills as well as problem solving skills as they grow. The basic concepts used in the test are those which are frequently encountered by young children in their daily experiences and surroundings. The test requires children to identify pictures and also listen and recognize the concept told to them as is very simple to understand and administer from an examiner’s view point. Hence this test could be highly beneficial to school children as well as children with special needs and helps the teacher to identify the difficult concepts and decide the future course of teaching. Though the test might be difficult for children of a very young age, however as they grow they will become more acquainted with the Boehm concepts. V. Opinion of the strengths and weaknesses of Boehm of Basic Concepts The major strength of the test is it enables the child as well as the teacher to know how well they have learnt a concept and their ability to identify the same. While children are only expected to point out to the object in the picture after listening to the concept told by the examiner, they are not encouraged to speak or utter the items pointed out. When children speak out words there involvement in the learning process and their vocabulary skills will tend to increase rather than just pointing out to the objects. VI. References 1. Boehm, A.E. (1986). Boehm Test of Basic Concepts Preschool Version. The Psychological Cooperation and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc. 1-35. 2. Ouellette, A.W., & Casteel, R.L. (1988). Prekindergarteners’ Performance on the Boehm test of Basic Concepts. NSSLHA Journal, 137-141. Read More