Many Hats of a Consultant: Standardized Testing

This is the first in a series of articles highlighting some of the tasks that education consultants may perform as they come alongside families in educating their children cross-culturally. The first task we are addressing is standardized testing.

Educational assessment may be the first thing that a family thinks of as a reason to reach out to their consultant. When things are going well educationally for their children, other pressing life and work issues may be the priority and it isn’t until a learning struggle surfaces or a transition is looming that they remember that their consultant offers a testing opportunity. So it is often the first point of contact with families for many consultants.

However, we must remember that there are many factors that influence the validity of testing in our context as international consultants. The tests were obviously normed for a particular segment of the population and our families do not fit the norms perfectly. Here are a few of the reasons we need to be especially careful when assessing children who are being educated cross-culturally:

1. Our TCKs are affected by the huge transitions in their lives, possibly resulting in a lack of focus or feelings of insecurity that might result in poorer performance on assessments.
2. TCKs may not have as many opportunities to take standardized tests as their passport country peers so the process of doing a test may slow them down.
3. Items on the tests may not have been taught in the same sequence or may not be addressed at all in another schooling context.
4. The language of the test may not be as prevalent in their daily lives as for their passport country peers.
5. Tests include many cultural references that TCKs may not have heard or experienced.

We’ve interviewed Janet Snyder, Testing Coordinator for SHARE Education Services, to gather information about her experience in testing TCKs and working with parents. Janet has served with SHARE since 2006 and leads a team of educators in offering a variety of assessments to assist parents in making sure their children reach their academic potential.

Janet, what changes have you seen over these last 10 to 15 years as you have coordinated testing for SHARE?

I see parents coming to us with much more information than in the past. However, some of their information may not be realistic and they may be predicting a diagnosis that hasn’t been confirmed. Questions about ADHD and dyslexia seem to be most popular. Another change is that those trained to do assessments are less likely to give a specific diagnosis (as DSM changes). They are more apt to offer suggested red flags to track and strategies to try than an official diagnosis.

What have been some of the challenges you and your team have encountered?

It’s been a challenge to assess children who are attending national schools and haven’t had much English instruction. It has also been difficult to use internet-based tests when you don’t have access to good internet. And traveling with materials into restricted-access countries has resulted in our being questioned about why we have the materials. And also, since we cover a large region of the world, the costs to travel and the personnel needed to meet the needs continues to be an ongoing challenge.

What advice do you have for international consultants who are doing educational assessments?

Remember that these tests only reflect a moment in time and parents must be reminded that there are many factors that may influence the validity of any test. These need to be discussed with parents since these tests are designed for monocultural children in most cases.

What standards do your testing staff have to meet?

All of our consultants and volunteer testing staff must have the proper credentials for administering the various tests we offer but administration is the easy part. We have a very strict training program for how to consult with parents and how to write up reports to give parents. We spend a lot of time researching strategies and discussing them among ourselves so that we stay current.

Consultants, what other concerns, challenges and advice do you have about this topic? Add your notes below so that we can learn from each other.

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