Assessing Children’s Learning Achievement Using Remote Video Technology

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Project Summary/Abstract This study evaluates remote video interviewing as a mode to administer standardized tests of math and reading achievement to children age 5-17 years in their homes. The goal is to determine whether remote video interviewing should be offered as an alternative mode of standardized test administration in the next wave of the Child Development Supplement (CDS) to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and will provide evidence about whether this approach offers an equivalent alternative to costly in-person administration with geographically dispersed or otherwise hard-to-reach samples. Standardized tests of math and reading performance offer valid and reliable measurement of a critical dimension of child development and reveal socially patterned disparities in learning achievement. To date in CDS, these tests have been administered in- person during field interviewers’ visits to children’s homes. But in-person administration has become increasingly challenging due to high travel and staffing costs associated with these visits in the geographically dispersed sample, respondents’ selective resistance to home visits, and constraints on in-person data collection arising from COVID-19. This project implements and evaluates remote video interviewing as a method to administer subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Achievement (WJ-IV) to children. Sample members will be recruited through local advertising in geographic clusters selected throughout the country and in different types of rural, suburban, and urban areas in proximity to where experienced interviewers reside. Remote video interviewing will be achieved by mailing (with a prepaid return shipping box) an electronic tablet enabled with a cellular data connection to children in sample families. During a scheduled interview, children will use the tablet to interact with their interviewer via a videoconferencing interface, and the interviewer will present test stimuli via a screenshare from their own computer to the child’s tablet. The interviewer will record the child’s responses to stimuli in a programmed scoresheet. This mode of administration will be compared to conventional in-person administration with the same children using distinct but equivalent versions of the WJ-IV tests. The study team will evaluate within-person equivalence of test scores derived from the two modes of administration and the operational feasibility and efficiency of remote video administration with regard to cost, time, and task complexity.