Eunice Fuchs is an Inclusive Education and Learning Analytics Specialist at Huanui College in New Zealand. We spoke to her about her interest in psychometrics, her career journey, and what ‘value added assessments’ look like when working with SEN learners.
You have a PhD in psychometric theory and statistics. Could you tell us about that and what your research involved?
“While my PhD is in Nursing, my true specialisation is in the tools of inquiry. I focused my doctoral work on the methods and statistical analysis required to measure complex social interventions, specifically how we quantify 'quality of care'.
I specialised in multi-level modelling to account for nesting and context in a multi-centre trial. This work taught me a critical lesson: the theoretical framework and underlying assumptions, whether Classical Test Theory or Item Response Theory, do matter. The theoretical psychometric framework needs to match the question one is aiming to answer and the type of data one is collecting.
I evaluated a tool that measured subjective perceptions and, as expected, the psychometric properties, as assessed using classical test theory, were highly sample-dependent. I conducted a secondary data analysis and was not involved in the initial stages of the research project, but this lesson helped me understand the strengths and limitations of classic test theory and item-response analysis as methodological approaches.
After earning my PhD, I moved to New Zealand and spent a period focused on family advocacy for my children's learning differences, enabling me to apply my passion for education in a personal context. Now, I am eager to bring that same methodical rigour and expertise back into a professional capacity as part of my role at Huanui College.”
Could you tell us what a ‘value-added assessment’ is and what is involved in its design and delivery?
“This term is used in education to measure a student's growth in a specific area or skill set over time. Over time, the school can assess how much the learner has grown in a particular skill or area. When comparing predicted and actual scores, educators can evaluate the effectiveness of their practice.
Although we know that student learning and growth is not solely based on the effectiveness of educators' practice, instructional practices can be a powerful leverage tool to achieve and 'even out' the playing field for students from diverse backgrounds and with diverse abilities, particularly for those with learning differences.
The overall aim of measuring growth in student achievement is not only to document the learning students have accomplished but also to establish an organisational culture of data-driven instruction. It is through data-informed, data-driven practices that we can quantify staff's subjective evaluations of what works and what doesn't in a classroom.
It also can help identify when early, differentiated interventions are needed to support those who are not growing in their learning environment at the expected rate, or spur inquiry to find out why. In the words of Dr Ross Greene, 'Kids do well if they can'. If they don't, it is our role to find out why."
My vision for how value-added assessments can be used to generate individual student learning profiles useful to their educators involves triangulating data from different sources.
Education and learning are complex social interventions delivered in complex social systems involving complex individuals. Achievement data is important, but innate cognitive strengths and abilities, alongside students' beliefs, attitudes and perceptions, also play an important role.
These models will always be imperfect, but they can provide a clearer picture of a student's strengths and needs so we can deliver holistic support that helps them meet their potential."
Could you tell us a little about what your role at Huanui College involves?
"Officially, my role title is 'Inclusive Education and Learning Analytics Specialist'. Its a new role that reflects the diversity of the skills, educational experiences and professional experiences I've accumulated, as well as the roles I'm performing within the school.
I initially started working within the college's learning support department, providing targeted remedial interventions in literacy and numeracy for students with learning difficulties after my children returned to school following a four-year period as a home educator. I gained this expertise to help my own children.
My role as a certified structured literacy and multisensory maths interventionist quickly evolved into identifying co-occurring neurodevelopmental conditions that affect information processing and learning through screening and referral to appropriate specialists. This tapped into the diagnostic reasoning skills I learned during nurse practitioner training.
I asked myself how our learning support department could play a more proactive role in understanding students' learning profiles before they started struggling academically, taking a more preventative approach rather than a reactive one to underachievement when it occurred.
Access to specialised assessments is limited and wait times can be long. As a Cambridge-approved special access arrangements assessor, I can bridge some of these gaps by combining different sources of assessment information to gather evidence and identify the next best step for a student who is not progressing as expected.
Furthermore, the process of discovery and acceptance for parents is exactly that, a process. Parents need the space to consider how to respond when educators raise concerns about the potential reasons for their children's academic or behavioural struggles. One needs to be able to walk alongside families in that process, at their pace, providing relevant information as needed.
My role in the learning support department enables me to support students and families. The aim is student-centred intervention and support.
I also became interested in the impact of testing practices on student wellbeing, particularly for neurodiverse students, and whether assessment data were being analysed and acted upon through the instructional cycle.
I reasoned that we could put together a programme of data collection efforts that triangulate cognitive ability, achievement and pupil attitudes, using that information to inform classroom practice, support differentiated instruction and promote motivation and engagement. This vision requires many building blocks, but it reflects a broader ambition to help students better understand their own learning journey and fulfil their potential.”
What have you experienced as the biggest assessment challenges for learners with Special Educational Needs (SEN)?
“Neuro-complexity and comorbidity. Assessment of cognitive profiles and learning difficulties is a challenge in the presence of neuro-complexity and comorbidity. Rarely do I see students who only have one neurodevelopmental condition, such as dyslexia. Most of the time, there is significant overlap among neurodevelopmental conditions.
Comorbidity should be the default assumption for practitioners when evaluating any learner for learning difficulties. Otherwise, the assessor will not be able to truly help the student or family gain a comprehensive understanding of why the student struggles and what treatments or supports are available."
We can't help or support that which we can't name or understand.
The goal is not to label and box up difficulties into a fixed reality. The goal is to identify areas that need active support while relying on the student's individual strengths to get through their educational years.
An additional challenge is that neurodiverse brains' performance could be characterised as inconsistently inconsistent. The testing environments in which these assessments take place are artificial. The combination of novelty, unfamiliarity and motivation to do well alters a learner's performance in a way that is not observed in their daily functioning.
Normed and standardised assessments do not measure all aspects of an individual's genius. One can be seriously misled when judging an individual's potential based on their scores. Any normed and standardised assessment is only a snapshot of how that individual's brain was performing on that day.
Whatever information we gather from normed and standardised assessments must be evaluated in the context of other sources. We are simply estimating cognitive abilities, academic achievement and functioning. These assessments do not necessarily reveal character strengths or genius in naturalistic settings, and we know these traits play a role in an individual's resilience and outcomes despite their areas of struggle."