Diagnostic Teaching and Testing

Educational diagnostic testing is a form of assessment that occurs before instruction begins. The purpose of administering diagnostic tests is to try to determine what students already know about the concepts and skills to be covered by instruction. The tests are not graded. The tests can determine if differentiated instruction is need, and discover students' preferred learning styles as well as their strengths, weaknesses, and misconceptions. Diagnostic tests are designed to closely follow what will be asked on a summative assessment and can be used to predict how well students will perform on high-stakes tests used to meet No Child Left Behind guidelines and state standards. In this respect, they can be considered a combination of both summative and formative assessments.

Keywords Adequate Yearly Progress; Diagnostic Testing; Differentiated Instruction; Formative Assessment; High-Stakes Testing; Learning Styles; No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB); Standardized Testing; Summative Assessment; Test Bias

Testing & Evaluation > Diagnostic Teaching & Testing

Overview

Educational diagnostic testing is a form of assessment that occurs before instruction begins. The purpose of administering diagnostic tests is to try to determine what students already know about the concepts and skills to be covered by instruction. Diagnostic tests are not graded.

Diagnostic tests can also be called pre-assessments, predictive assessments, or diagnostic pretests. Educational diagnostic testing can be used to evaluate students' level of academic achievement and learning potential and can sometimes lead to additional assessments if warranted by students' responses. Standardized tests and instructor-constructed assessments can be used as diagnostic tools to determine students' level of prior knowledge. One-on-one interviews may also be used as a diagnostic tool. Using diagnostic testing can help instructors plan differentiated instruction, lesson plans, teaching strategies, and other classroom techniques to help all students in the classroom achieve their academic potential.

Diagnostic testing can be a very useful tool for instructors, because it can tell them where their students are with respect to what they are planning to teach them. For example, an instructor is planning to begin mathematics instruction with how to add and subtract fractions. If diagnostic testing shows that the entire class has already mastered that concept, but not how to multiply and divide fractions, then the instructor modifies the lesson plan to begin with multiplication and division of fractions. If diagnostic testing shows that half the class has mastered the concepts and half has not, then the instructor may decide to implement differentiated instruction. By beginning instruction with where students are, additional instruction time is gained which can be used to go over concepts the class has not mastered more slowly or cover more concepts than originally anticipated. Conversely, if the instructor was planning on beginning instruction with adding and subtracting fractions but diagnostic testing shows that students have not mastered simple addition or subtraction, the instructor should begin there.

A purely diagnostic assessment can be used to profile students' interests and help determine their preferred learning styles. Diagnostic testing can also help instructors plan their instruction and develop curriculum by helping to determine whether or not classroom instruction is closely aligned with federal and/or state high-stakes tests. Since these assessments are intended for diagnostic or predictive purposes, they are not graded (McTighe & O'Connor, 2005).

Using Diagnostic Tests Efficiently

In order for diagnostic testing to work, instructors need to identify what competencies they want their students to have mastered. Based on that information, they must decide what tasks students should complete in order to determine each student's level of readiness regarding the competencies. Instructors can then go over their lesson plans and make any necessary adjustments. Some instructors may not plan their first lesson until they have seen the results of the diagnostic testing and can analyze exactly where students are with respect to prior knowledge.

Diagnostic pre-assessments can come from standardized assessments or be instructor developed. One possibility is to take the skills from summative assessments, which reflect what instructors think their students should know. This is accomplished by looking at specific skills and concepts the test is looking to assess and then developing the diagnostic test. This is also a good way of checking the effectiveness of instruction once the summative assessment has been given, because instructors can easily see what their students knew before instruction began and compare it with the post-intruction summative assessment results (Wormeli, 2006).

Diagnostic tests should not be too large or complex and should only look to assess specific skills and concepts. For example, instructors could have their students solve three math problems that represent what will be taught. When creating diagnostic tests, instructors should consider the following:

• What skills are to be assessed,

• Whether the assessment allows students to demonstrate mastery of those skills,

• If every component of the skills accounted for in the assessment,

• If students can respond in a different way than expected and still show mastery of the concepts, and

• If the assessment is a test of the process or the content (Wormeli, 2006).

Formal & Informal Testing

Diagnostic testing can be both formal and informal. Formal diagnostic testing includes standardized tests that can be used to assess particular skills, giving objective data on skill levels. However, the validity of such tests can be debated, and there is some concern about test bias. Additionally, standardized tests may assess more or fewer skills than those that will occur during instruction. The formal approach to diagnostic testing can be implemented within a classroom, a department, or within a school. It can also occur within a school district, state, or nation. Informal diagnostic testing approaches can provide more flexibility, such as one-on-one questioning or small-group testing; but they still must follow the principles of diagnostic testing, meaning that they must assess only what is slated to be taught in the classroom and cover all concepts and skills (Highland Learning, n.d.).

Diagnostic Testing in the Classroom

Diagnostic testing must be aligned with predetermined learning objectives and should be built into the regular classroom routine. The assessments should be relatively short, valid, and free from bias. In order to accurately use diagnostic testing, instructors must be willing to modify course content and their teaching methods based on the information they receive from the assessments. This could mean covering subjects and concepts assumed to be already mastered, or not covering concepts that were originally planned if the skills and concepts have already been mastered. Instructors should also take care to assure that the assessment's directions are clear and cannot be misunderstood. Students should also be told why they are taking the diagnostic test and reminded that it is not going to be graded which helps alleviate any possible test anxiety or stress (Highland Learning, n.d.).

Diagnostic tests are designed to closely follow what will be asked on a summative assessment. Diagnostic tests can also be used to predict how well students will perform on high-stakes tests used to meet No Child Left Behind guidelines and state standards. In this respect, they can be considered a combination of both summative and formative assessments. Diagnostic reports can show specific errors that students have made which can make it simpler to increase student performance and help schools, districts, and states meet their achievement goals. In fact, at least one publishing company has developed predictive assessments that are specifically aligned to each state's high-stakes tests (Starkman, 2006).

Further Insights

Although some consider diagnostic testing a type of formative assessment, it differs in that formative assessment should be ongoing in nature, occurs once instruction has begun, and checks students to ensure they are making adequate progress in learning the skills and concepts presented in class. Diagnostic testing is not ongoing and is completed before instruction begins. The similarity lies in the fact that both can-and should-be used to help guide instruction.

The Business of Diagnostic Testing

There are companies that parents can use that specialize in diagnostic testing. For a fee, they use national standardized assessments and assessments that are supposed to be aligned to state standards in order to determine grade equivalents, specific subject strengths and weaknesses, and the learning styles most appropriate for each student. With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, some companies advertise that their tests are aligned with benchmarks and standards to assess student mastery and adequate yearly progress (Felix & Finley, 2005). This type of marketing can be effective in selling a product to parents who are concerned that their children are not progressing well enough to pass high-stakes tests and are at risk of being retained or not receiving their high school diploma.

Even in the current high-stakes testing learning environment, some school districts are phasing out certain high-stakes tests and adopting a less stressful system of diagnostic testing. The Chicago school system, which serves over 430,000 students, decided that beginning with the 2005-2006 school year, schools would no longer use the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and instead adopt reading assessments that were aligned to the state's standards used for meeting No Child Left Behind Act accountability requirements. They planned to administer the diagnostic tests three times a year and provide instructors with the assessment results within two weeks so that they could use the results to help guide their instruction and monitor student progress. The results are also shared with students' parents so that they can see if their children are making progress, what skills they have mastered, and what skills they still need to master. With the implementation of diagnostic testing in lieu of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, student promotion after grades three, six, and eight will depend on students' performance on the state test and other criteria (Bradley, 2005).

Diagnostic Testing for Preschool & Kindergarten

Diagnostic testing can also be used at the preschool level. As of 2002, 17 states had state-required diagnostic testing for kindergartners (NCEDL/Educations Week, 2001, as cited in "School Readiness and Assessment," 2002). This information can be used to place students in different classrooms based on ability so that those who need additional help can receive a more individualized education covering the foundational concepts on which all other competencies in future grades are based. These results should also be shared with parents so that they can help their children work on skills they need to master. These assessments can also be used to provide a baseline for future assessments.

An example of diagnostic testing in kindergarten might include an instructor asking students to draw a picture of body parts related to the different senses and requesting that they show what each part does. The instructor models the process by drawing an eye on the chalkboard and telling students the eye is used to see things. As students are working on their drawings, the instructor walks around the room to ask clarifying questions to help students articulate what they want to draw (such as seeing an ear and asking the child what an ear does). Based on what the instructor sees and learns about the students, the students may then be divided into groups for differentiated instruction. At the end of instruction, the instructor can have the students perform the same task of drawing the body parts and showing what each part does and compare the results with their original assessment to check student learning. Based on the new results, students may be moved to different groups (McTighe & O'Connor, 2005).

District & State Testing

If diagnostic testing is administered statewide or district wide, it can help assure consistency and standardization and gain information about the entire district or state. It can also help keep curriculum aligned with state standards and help assure student success on assessments used to meet No Child Left Behind Act standards. From a school's perspective, the data may affect the organization of a classroom, the number of aides in the room, and whether or not students receive more individualized attention. For instructors and students, diagnostic testing can improve teaching and learning and help keep students engaged since they will learn new material and not material they have already mastered (Highland Learning, n.d.).

Learning Gaps & Acceleration

Diagnostic testing may also reveal that there is a learning gap if it is assumed that students know concepts that were taught in previous classes. In an ideal situation, those students who have a large knowledge gap in what they should know and what they actually do know could be worked with separately or moved to another class before instruction actually begins. Diagnostic testing may also reveal that students know more than what was originally assumed, enabling the instructor to move forward at a faster pace and making it possible to cover more material than originally intended.

Use with Formative & Summative Assessment

Recent research has shown that the regular use of both diagnostic testing and formative assessments benefits both instructors and students (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall & Wiliam, 2004, as cited in McTighe & O'Connor, 2005). Diagnostic testing can set the stage for instruction and where the instructor should begin with students, and ongoing formative assessment can assure that both the instructor and students are still on the right track for successful student outcomes. By finding the appropriate starting point for instruction and dividing students into proper skill levels, instructors can more effectively meet each student's learning needs and keep everyone engaged in the learning process. By using formative assessment to assure students are mastering the concepts and skills presented in class or to make adjustments to instruction, instructors can provide specific and timely information to students regarding what they still need to work on and guide their own methods of instruction for maximum effectiveness.

Using diagnostic testing and going straight to summative assessment without including formative assessments throughout instruction curtails the usefulness of diagnostic testing. Even if instructors begin instruction with a good idea of what their students know and where their skills lie, they will not know if their instruction has been effective until it is too late to do anything or take any corrective measures to help students succeed since summative assessments occur after instruction. Therefore, in order to get the most out of diagnostic testing and the best out of instructors, it is important for instructors to use the three forms of assessment in concert, be open minded enough to acknowledge that some students may struggle in class as a result of the instructional methods being used, and be flexible enough to make adjustments in the classroom.

Terms & Concepts

Adequate Yearly Progress: Adequate yearly progress, according to the No Child Left Behind Act, means that test data must be collected and analyzed in relation to student learning to report student and school proficiency, and the standards that determine proficiency must be raised over time with an increased number of students meeting the standards.

Differentiated Instruction: Differentiated instruction is also sometimes called differentiated learning and refers to the use of many different instructional strategies to teach students of various learning abilities and needs.

Formative Assessment: Formative assessments are considered part of the instructional process and are intended to provide information needed to help instructors adjust their instruction and help students learn while instruction is occurring.

High-Stakes Testing: High-stakes testing is the use of test scores to make decisions that have important consequences for individuals, schools, school districts, and/or states and can include high school graduation, promotion to the next grade, resource allocation, and instructor retention.

Learning Styles: Learning styles are the different ways students learn. Most students prefer to learn through visual cues and interaction, while others learn better through auditory or tactile processes, or a combination of the three.

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB): The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is the latest reauthorization and a major overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the major federal law regarding K-12 education.

Standardized Testing: Standardized testing is the use of a test that is administered and scored in a uniform manner, and the tests are designed in such a way that the questions and interpretations are consistent.

Summative Assessment: Summative assessments are intended to summarize what students have learned and occur after instruction has been completed.

Test Bias: Test bias occurs when provable and systematic differences in the results of students taking the test are discernable based on group membership, such as gender, socioeconomic standing, race, or ethnic group.

Bibliography

Bradley, A. (2005). Chicago schools scrap Iowa exams in favor of diagnostic tests. Education Week, 25 , 4. Retrieved September 5, 2007 from EBSCO online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=18279853&site=ehost-live

Felix, K. & Finley, S. (2005). Predictive assessment series. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 12 , 47-48. Retrieved September 10, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=17662151&site=ehost-live

Highland Learning & Teaching Toolkit (n.d.). Diagnostic assessment. Retrieved September 9, 2007, from http://www.highlandschools-virtualib.org.uk/ltt/whole_learner/diagnostic.htm

McTighe, J. & O'Connor, K. (2005). Seven practices for effective learning. Educational Leadership, 63 , 10-17. Retrieved June 19, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=18772684&site=ehost-live

Mokhtari, K., Niederhauser, D. S., Beschorner, E. A., & Edwards, P. A. (2011). FAD: Filtering, analyzing, and diagnosing reading difficulties. Reading Teacher, 64, 631-635. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=60759863&site=ehost-live

Piasta, S. B., Petscher, Y., & Justice, L. M. (2012). How many letters should preschoolers in public programs know? The diagnostic efficiency of various preschool letter-naming benchmarks for predicting first-grade literacy achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104, 945-958. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=83480104&site=ehost-live

School readiness and assessment (2002). Education Week, 21 , 66. Retrieved September 7, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=6066391&site=ehost-live

Starkman, N. (2006). Building a better student. T H E Journal, 33 , 41-46. Retrieved June 19, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=22669806&site=ehost-live

Sterling, D. (2005). Understanding assessment. Science Scope, 28 , 33-37. Retrieved September 6, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=1983728&site=ehost-live

Tweed, M., & Wilkinson, T. (2012). Diagnostic testing and educational assessment. Clinical Teacher, 9, 299-303. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=80201999&site=ehost-live

Wormeli, R. (2006). Fair isn't always equal: Assessing & grading in the differentiated classroom. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Suggested Reading

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B. & Wiliam, D. (2003). Assessment for Learning. Berkshire, UK: Open University Press.

Earl, L. (2003). Assessment as Learning: Using Classroom Assessment to Maximize Student Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Leighton, J. & Gierl, M. (2007). Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment for Education: Theory and Applications. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Lindsay, G. & Desforges, M. (1998). Baseline Assessment: Practice, Problems and Possibilities. London, UK: David Fulton Publishers.