Bilingual school psychologists' assessment practices with English language learners

Document Type

Article

Date of Original Version

12-1-2010

Abstract

This study explored bilingual school psychologists' assessment practices with students identified as English language learners (ELL). One thousand bilingual National Association of School Psychologist members were recruited nationwide, and 276 participated. Among those conducting language proficiency assessments of ELLs, many (58%) use comprehensive methods across four domains of language use. Participants generally use multifaceted assessment approaches and most (84.1%) assess acculturation as part of the assessment battery. Although few use interpreters, those who did reported a mix of best practices and discouraged practices their use. Multiple regression results showed that engaging continuing education activities about assessing ELLs predicted "best practices" when assessing language proficiency, selecting and using measures with ELLs with whom they share a second language, and using interpreters. A relationship was also found between engaging applied preservice training with bilingual supervision and best practice behaviors assessing student acculturation. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Copyright © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company.

Publication Title, e.g., Journal

Psychology in the Schools

Volume

47

Issue

10

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