What will the direct assessment component of SEELS entail?
The direct assessment is intended to accomplish three objectives: (1) assess academic skills, (2) assess social skills, and (3) conduct a short interview with students. After a year of intensive work with a panel of experts, two different types of assessments were created to be used by SEELS: a direct assessment and an alternate assessment. Both types of assessments use shortened sections of common assessments used in education that have proven content and technical characteristics. The chosen measures will have broad applicability across the age range that the study will ultimately cover, as well as across a national norm sample for at least some of the assessment. This will allow SEELS to have some information on how students who are not part of SEELS respond so that some comparisons can be made about how the SEELS students respond in comparison with other students. The direct assessment is a series of subtests that are administered face-to-face with the student. The subtests include
