Federal and state laws have mandated preschool educational screenings. However, these laws only specify that a screening measure must be incorporated in the school's procedures. The laws do not state what this screening measure should be or how it should be used. For example, Public Law 94-142 established that a school should focus on early identification and intervention of children with special needs, but did not specify how to identify these students. As a result, reliable, valid screening measures are needed. A review of the current literature indicates that there are numerous screening measures available, but there is conflicting evidence regarding how these measures should be used and their predictive validity. The purpose of this current study is to evaluate the ability of a school corporation's local kindergarten screening measure, known as SEEK, to predict school achievement by the end of third grade, and special education placement, Title I support services, and gifted services by the end of fifth grade for both Amish and English speaking students. School achievement was measured by the student's performance on the third grade ISTEP. Archival educational data was collected for 333 children who participated in SEEK in 1997 and 1998, and then later took the third grade ISTEP. Results of the multiple regression analyses revealed that the overall composite score of the SEEK significantly predicted third grade ISTEP scores, special education placement, Title I support services, and gifted support services for both Amish and English students. However, the significance of the different components of SEEK to predict ISTEP scores varied depending on the area of ISTEP measured. In addition, the sensory and the behavior components did not significantly predict variation on ISTEP scores for either.language or math. Overall, these findings help validate the predictive validity of using the overall SEEK score and the usefulness of kindergarten screening. In addition, this study has implications in developing preventative approaches to benefit students who may be likely to experience learning difficulties at school. A discussion of the limitations as well as the usefulness of this study is presented along with directions for future kindergarten screening research. / Department of Educational Psychology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/175782 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Davis, Sherrie L. |
| Contributors | Lapsley, Daniel K. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | x, 89 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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