Bias in Teachers’ Special Education Decisions as a Function of Test Score Reporting Format

Abstract

Fifty-one experienced classroom teachers participated in an experiment designed to investigate the effects of test score reporting format (grade equivalents vs. percentile ranks vs. deviation IQs) on educational decisions. Although the scores were equated in terms of the case study student’s position in the distribution of scores, teachers were more likely to recommend special education placements when they were asked to evaluate percentile ranks rather than grade equivalents or deviation IQs. There was also a trend for the teachers to be more likely to diagnose the case study child as learning disabled and predict future academic problems when percentile ranks were used in contrast to grade equivalents or standard scores. The implications of these findings for the use of test scores in diagnostic decision-making practices are discussed.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 8 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.