Curriculum Bias in Published, Norm-Referenced Reading Tests: Demonstrable Effects

Good, R. H.; Salvia, John

doi:10.1080/02796015.1988.12085325

Cited by 37 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The items were based on the National Foundation for Educational Research 5-14 Mathematics Series, which is linked closely to curriculum requirements in the UK and the English Numeracy Strategy (NFER-Nelson, 1994, 1999, 2001. Such curriculum-based assessment alleviates some of the potential biases associated with other achievement tests (Good & Salvia, 1988). From Booklets 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 (referring to age of students), a total of 77 target items were chosen.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mathematical Ability of 10-Year-Old Boys and Girls

Kovas

Haworth²,

Petrill

et al. 2007

J Learn Disabil

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The genetic and environmental etiologies of 3 aspects of low mathematical performance (math disability) and the full range of variability (math ability) were compared for boys and girls in a sample of 5,348 children age 10 years (members of 2,674 pairs of same-sex and opposite-sex twins) from the United Kingdom (UK). The measures, which we developed for Web-based testing, included problems from 3 domains of mathematics taught as part of the UK National Curriculum. Using quantitative genetic model-fitting analyses, similar results were found for math disabilities and abilities for all 3 measures: Moderate genetic influence and environmental influence were mainly due to nonshared environmental factors that were unique to the individual, with little influence from shared environment. No sex differences were found in the etiologies of math abilities and disabilities. We conclude that low mathematical performance is the quantitative extreme of the same genetic and environmental factors responsible for variation throughout the distribution.Compared to reading disabilities (Pennington & Olson, 2005), relatively little is known about the genetic and environmental etiologies of mathematics abilities and disabilities, the extent to which these etiologies differ for low performance and typical performance, and the extent to which these etiologies differ for male and female students. The present study provides the first analysis of these issues using a sample of twins large enough to investigate the origins of low mathematics performance (which we will refer to as math disability) in the context of normal variation (or ability) and to consider sex differences in both abilities and disabilities.Four previous twin studies of general mathematics performance have yielded a wide range of results (see . Our previous research on mathematics disabilities and abilities, based on teacher ratings using the United Kingdom (UK) National Curriculum criteria, was the first study to compare mathematics disabilities and abilities and found similar genetic and environmental results for math disabilities and abilities (Oliver et al., 2004). This work focused on three aspects of mathematics identified by the UK National Curriculum for 7-year-old children: Using and Applying Mathematics; Number and Algebra; and Shapes, Space and Measures. Substantial genetic influence (65% heritabilities) was found both for mathematics disabilities (lowest 15%) and for mathematics abilities (the rest of the distribution). Moreover, the results indicated not only that the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences was similar but also that the same genetic and environmental factors drive individual differences in the whole of the distribution of ability-at the low end as well as the rest of the distribution (see Method section for an explanation of the relevant analytic methods). At the level of the environment, the position of an individual on the mathematics continuum depends on a cumulative effect of many risk and protective environments. Simil...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mathematical Ability of 10-Year-Old Boys and Girls

Kovas

Haworth²,

Petrill

et al. 2007

J Learn Disabil

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“…One of the main reasons for using the assessment based on the U.K. national curriculum is to increase the relevance of our study to education. In addition, curriculum-based assessment alleviates some of the potential biases associated with other achievement tests (Good & Salvia, 1988).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of diverse domains of mathematics: Generalist genes but specialist environments.

Kovas¹,

Petrill

Plomin³

2007

Journal of Educational Psychology

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The authors assessed 2,502 ten-year-old children, members of 1,251 pairs of twins, on a Web-based battery of problems from 5 diverse aspects of mathematics assessed as part of the U.K. national curriculum. This 1st genetic study into the etiology of variation in different domains of mathematics showed that the heritability estimates were moderate and highly similar across domains and that these genetic influences were mostly general. Environmental factors unique to each twin in a family (rather than shared by the 2 twins) explained most of the remaining variance, and these factors were mostly specific to each domain.

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“…The items were based on the NFER 5–14 Mathematics Series, which is linked closely to curriculum requirements in the United Kingdom and the English Numeracy Strategy ( nferNelson, 1994 , 1999 , 2001 ). Such curriculum-based assessment alleviates some of the potential biases associated with other achievement tests ( Good & Salvia, 1988 ). From booklets 6–11 (referring to age of students), a total of 77 target items were chosen.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%