TESL 654

Assessment Project
Kaufman Test of Education Achievement Second Edition
In education a variety of assessments are used to determine students learning
outcomes. These learning outcomes from assessments can be used for recommendations
for placements, monitoring, and accountability. Assessments for programs serve a
purpose in readiness to exit the program, program evaluation as well as monitoring and
accountability. However, how does one determine which assessment will serve the best
for all students without any biases? The subgroup in education that is affected by
standardized assessments is English Language Learners. The focused assessment in this
paper is the Kaufman Test of Education Achievement Second Edition (KTEA-II) and
how it impacts ELL learning outcomes.
The KTEA-II is a curriculum- based instrument that assesses the achievement
domains of reading, written language and mathematics. The area focused on more is
reading with a total of 73 question items compared to writing with 46 question items and
math with 67 question items. However, reading is broken into two subcategories: word
recognition (27 items) and comprehension with (46 items). The purpose of the assessment
instrument is to assess what students must do in the classroom and the skills that are
measured aligned with common educational objectives. The assessment is also intended
for screening on global skills in reading, writing, and math and it is best used in the
preliminary stage of evaluation. The results may imply that more thorough testing and
evaluations may be needed; the measured results help determine the next step in the
assessment process.

The KTEA-II is normed on a nationwide sample of children and adults aged 4.6
years to 90 years. Grade norms samples for kindergarten through grade 12 differ from
aged norm samples of 4.6 to 90 years. Even though the norms scores are different for the
two categories, the criteria stayed the same. Thus meaning, the samples represented for
the ages of 4.6-90 one must speak English, noninstitutionalized, do not have physical,
perceptual, or psychological impairments that prevent the given tasks of the assessments.
In spite of this, the only exception was for school age norms; examinees in this category
included examinees in special education or gifted/talented programs. No mentions of
ELL students were within the criteria, therefore making this assessment have a norming
bias. The scores are not comparable to all students in the U.S. because the assessment
was given in one language (English).
Going forward with the assessment, the KTEA-II provides clear instructions for
the administrator. The assessments have verbal and oral cues for the administrator such
as point to the paragraph and say Point to the rabbits (demonstrate point to each in
turn) and count them aloud as you point and This picture (point) shows something to
do every day with your new dog. Etc. The administrator should be familiarized with the
examinees side of the assessment and test booklet to keep consistency. Also, the
criterion for scoring in each section is clearly explained by giving examples for correct
responses and incorrect responses. It does not penalize for articulation errors and
variations due to regional speech patterns such as: ovah for over and tahm for time.
For multiple responses, the administrator must acknowledge both responses by repeating
them back to the examinee, asking them to choose one. All responses should be recorded
on the administrator form for documentation. As with any assessment, the administrator

must be aware what is considered correct regardless if the incorrect response is not
mentioned on the easel.
The assessment is not adaptable and does not allow changes in the criteria for
passing. Due to being a standardized test it is critical that the assessment stays the same
in order to keep validity. The assessment must not be paraphrased or simplified when
giving the assessment. Therefore if the student does not have background knowledge on
a portion of the assessment it cannot be explained. If the student is an ELL student and
may not have the understanding as a monolingual English student it also cannot be
explained. During the standardized process precise rules for correct responses were
developed and must be followed.
The KTEA-II provides scores in the forms of raw scores, standard scores, grade
equivalents, age equivalents and percentiles. Raw scores are the number of items
answered correctly but cannot be analyzed. It does not provide information on the
examinees performance and needs to be converted to the other scores mentioned in order
to have meaning. Once the raw scores are converted they are compared to norms based
on the sampling.
The assessment does well measuring what it is stated for the average monolingual
English students, however it is a normed bias assessment, therefore is not appropriate for
ELL students. Taking this into consideration, an educator must acknowledge it will not
show true value in the results of an ELL student. The first critical component of not
providing truth to what is being measured is the criteria of the population that was used
for the norming process. Not only are ELLs not included in the norm sampling but also
disproportion numbers of African American, Hispanic, and Other compared to White.

The assessment also has a cultural bias with numerous items an ELL student may not
know due to language barriers but not necessarily because of their knowledge
capabilities. Examples of this is in the recognition subtest, ELLs struggle with soundsymbol association so the following words may be difficult for them to say when they are
unfamiliar words that are not commonly used such as: phenomenon, patriotism, choirs,
belligerent, labyrinth, benign, opaque, paradigm, gauche and milieu. An example in the
comprehension subtest is the question what color is milk? Correct responses include
answers of white, pink (depends on what kind) meaning they want the answer strawberry
and chocolate, however chocolate and strawberry is more of a flavor verses a color which
can also confuse ELL students when they question is not explicitly clear. Another
example of this in the reading comprehension subtest, a short passage is about apes. If a
student does not know another name for what an ape is, this passage can affect their
comprehension and the overall meaning of the story. The passage also states items about
a keypad, reporter, visitor and roasting marshmallows. Again, if an ELL student does not
know these vocabulary terms in English it does not mean they cannot read or comprehend
but rather the English language. An additional reading passage states the question
According to this paragraph, putting laces in your shoes is similar to which of the
following activities: buying an aglet, spelling a word, sewing, running, and speaking
French. Some of these answers may be eliminated but if an ELL student does not know
the meaning behind these verbs in English it may be difficult to answer. It also includes a
passage about United States History such as the westward expansion, Civil War,
Confederacy, and U.S. government. This is bias to ELL students because those who lived

in the United States their entire lives may have a better understanding and can use
background knowledge to answer comprehension questions.
There is content bias within this assessment, especially in the math subtest. In the
math assessment, it gives several story problems that orally said without written
instruction and with written instruction. Math story problems are examples that require a
student to know the English language in order to solve the problem verses having the
math computation skills. An example of a story problem given is Tina counted all of the
boxes of paper clips in the supply room. There are nine full boxes. If each box holds one
hundred paper clips, how many clips were there altogether? This question is not orally
presented but also has numbers spelled out causing it to be more abstract with language.
Another example of this is a story problem that only includes a picture while the
examiner says the following, A farmer wants to divide his fifteen pigs equally and put
them in three separate pens. How many pigs will go into each pen? Not only does it
make the examinee process the question but also relying on vocabulary knowledge that
pen is a multiple meaning word. The assessment eventually has problems that require
knowledge and memorization of formulas for questions such as: finding the average,
area, and converting percentages. This is not only are these concepts difficult for the
average student who does not remember formulas but especially for an ELL student.
I feel this assessment provides information that would be useful for intervention.
However, in order to use for an intervention one but reteach the skill with instruction.
The skills given arent specific enough to use for direct instruction. Meaning it just
targets skills in isolation rather than Common Core Standards that build on each other. I
feel the assessment only shows a minimal amount of skills a student must have in

reading, writing, and math. I would use another assessment to determine where students
stand academically. In order to truly know where a student is, I feel the examiner must
have a good rapport with the student to know if certain tasks in the KTEA-II stand true to
the student. Therefore this assessment is only beneficial for benchmarks. As mentioned
earlier, I do not feel this assessment provides enough information that an examiner can
analyze for annual and short-term objectives. However, the test is sensitive to incremental
gains by starting off with easier tasks that gradually increase in complexity and difficulty.
If the examiner appropriately starts with correct the item, the examiner will not become
easily frustrated.
Overall, the assessment is only beneficial in the early stages of intervention and
should not be used for ELL students. This assessment has many bias norms and does not
include any assessments for ELL students to display their knowledge. This assessment is
merely a window on where students are academically. As for best practices, educators
must use a range of procedures and measures in both English and in the ELL students
native language in order to thoroughly understand their learning outcomes.