Search Results

Author: Ernst, Michelle
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Ernst, Michelle
Pergamit, Michael R.
Data Quality and the Use of Standardized Child Assessments in Survey Research
Presented: Miami Beach, FL, Annual Meeting of the American Association For Public Opinion Association, May 2005.
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: American Association of Public Opinion Research
Keyword(s): Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Testing Conditions; Tests and Testing

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Beginning with the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth/1979 cohort (CNLSY79) in 1986, large-scale surveys began to incorporate standardized assessments. Formerly used only in clinical settings or schools, these assessments are now administered in a household setting by lay field interviewers. The administration of standardized assessments to children by lay field interviewers raises data quality concerns. Standardized child assessments have rigid administration protocols. Deviation from procedure can greatly affect a child's response. Furthermore, administrative complexity varies across assessments. While some assessments consist of a very simple and straight-forward administrative protocol, other assessments rely much more on the skills of the individual conducting the administration. It is hypothesized that an administratively complex assessment with strong published psychometric properties may not maintain those properties when administered by interviewers in large-scale studies. This paper proposes examining the published psychometrics for three assessments (the Woodcock-Johnson, the PPVT, and the PIAT) and comparing the published psychometrics with its reliability and validity within single, longitudinal studies (the NLSY79 and the PSID). By using multiple years of assessment data from the Children of the NLSY79 (PPVT/PIAT) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Supplement (Woodcock-Johnson), we have access to a large number of assessments conducted by a large number of interviewers. We can compare distributions between interviewers as well as looking at the same interviewer over time. These two data sets provide a rich source of data on assessments that allows us to examine many differences in administration. It will also be possible to examine how the psychometric properties of different assessments stand up in a large-scale survey as a function of the complexity of the assessment. If interviewer variability is greater in administrations of the complex tests, this argues for greater consideration of administrative procedures when choosing assessments for large-scale survey research.
Bibliography Citation
Ernst, Michelle and Michael R. Pergamit. "Data Quality and the Use of Standardized Child Assessments in Survey Research." Presented: Miami Beach, FL, Annual Meeting of the American Association For Public Opinion Association, May 2005.