Psychometric characteristics and appropriate use of the Gesell School Readiness Screening Test

School readiness practices and children at-risk: Examining the issues

“…In addition, for every potential failure accurately identified, a successful child was falsely identified as at-risk; this is particularly problematic when one realizes that some schools are identifying up to 61% of their entering kindergarten classes as unready (Center for Law and Education, 1988). Such low efficiency raises serious questions related to the utility of the screening (May et al, 1994), and recent studies (Graue & Shepard, 1989;Lichtenstein, 1990;Shepard, 1992;Walker, 1992) continue to lead to questions about predictive validity and scoring biases on school readiness tests.…”

Children not ready to learn? The invalidity of school readiness testing

“…The original technical manual, School Readiness (Ilg, Ames, Haines, & Gillespie, 1978), contained no data on either test-retest or interrater reliability. In a more recent study, Lichtenstein (1990) found "substantial examiner differences in interpreting the same test performance" (p. 374), which he attributed to the nonstandard scoring system. Studies by Lichtenstein (1990) and Walker (1992) show Gesell examiners are predisposed to judge more than 50% of normal 5-year-olds as "developmentally young."…”

“…In a more recent study, Lichtenstein (1990) found "substantial examiner differences in interpreting the same test performance" (p. 374), which he attributed to the nonstandard scoring system. Studies by Lichtenstein (1990) and Walker (1992) show Gesell examiners are predisposed to judge more than 50% of normal 5-year-olds as "developmentally young." Predictive validity coefficients for the Gesell have ranged from .23 to .5 (Walker, 1992).…”

School Readiness

“…May and Kundert (1992a, 1992b, 1992c surveyed school districts in New York and reported that 56% of the 260 responding districts used kindergarten screening results to make school readiness placement recommendations and that 57% of the school districts had prefirst placements for unready children. Similarly, whereas researchers such as Liechtenstein (1990) and Graue and Shepard (1989) stated that the Gesell School Readiness Test was inadequate for use in school readiness placement decisions, May and Kundert (1992a) reported that it was used more often in kindergarten screenings than was any other published test; in fact, it was used in 23% of the New York school districts responding to their survey.…”

“…Such low efficiency raises a very serious utility question. More recent studies (Graue & Shepard, 1989;Liechtenstein, 1990;Shepard, 1992;Walker, 1992) continue to lead to questions about the predictive validity and scoring biases present in the Gesell School Readiness Test.…”