Kindergarten entrance assessment: Is it worth the effort?

Abstract

School psychologists frequently are involved in assessment programs for children entering kindergarten. A comparison is made between screening and assessment related to norm-based and criterion-referenced assessment. Normbased testing can be either categorical or dejcit-ceatered, while the criterion approaches tend to be academic or cognitive-developmental. In order to make appro riate decisions, we need to know the problems and outcomes related to eac! approach. It is also felt that assessment should be related to the underlying issues in develo mental psychology and the type of kindergarten experiences provided for t t e child.Teachitrg the disadvatifaged chzld zti the preschool. Englewood cliffs, Criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessment of minority group children.

Effects of Student Attributes On Kindergarten Scores Across Product and Process Tests

“…Although evidence exists for differences in cognitive style, tests seldom measure mental processes (Keogh, 1972). Increasingly, researchers (Abbott & Crane, 1977;Keogh & Becker, 1973;Lidz, 1977;Wendt, 1978) have iterated the need for assessing how preschool children approach tasks and their strategies of organization, speed of decisions, and persistence. The Lock Box represents a standardized measure for evaluating the processes a preschool child (ages 2-6 to 5-11) uses to organize an unstructured, problematic situation.…”