Diagnostic test & Remedial Measures

DIAGNOSTIC TEST

Mathematics teacher applies diagnostic test to diagnose the particular strength and weakness of the students. It is qualitative.

How much water in bottle? Quantity of water comes in achievement test, while

about quality why the bottle is empty or full comes in diagnostic test.

Diagnostic testing can be both formal and informal. Formal diagnostic testing includes standardized tests that can be used to assess particular skills, giving objective data on skill levels. However, the validity of such tests can be debated, and there is some concern about test bias. Additionally, standardized tests may assess more or fewer skills than those that will occur during instruction. The formal approach to diagnostic testing can be implemented within a classroom, a department, or within a school. It can also occur within a school district, state, or nation.

 Informal diagnostic testing approaches can provide more flexibility, such as one-on-one questioning or small-group testing; but they still must follow the principles of diagnostic testing, meaning that they must assess only what is slated to be taught in the classroom and cover all concepts and skills.

Types of Diagnostic Test:

1.     Educational Diagnostic Test : Educational diagnostic testing is a form of assessment that occurs before instruction begins. The purpose of administering diagnostic tests is to try to determine what students already know about the concepts and skills to be covered by instruction. The tests are not graded. The tests can determine if differentiated instruction is need, and discover students' preferred learning styles as well as their strengths, weaknesses, and misconceptions. Diagnostic tests are designed to closely follow what will be asked on a summative assessment and can be used to predict how well students will perform on high-stakes tests used to meet No Child Left Behind guidelines and state standards. In this respect, they can be considered a combination of both summative and formative assessments.

2.     Physical or clinical Diagnostic Tests. A medical test is a kind of medical procedure performed to detect, diagnose, or monitor diseases, disease processes, susceptibility, and determine a course of treatment.  It refers to hearing, vision and other things which is affect to the child for learning.

Characteristic of Diagnostic Test:

1.      To find out weakness or deficiency.

2.     To help in planning and organizing remedial teaching.

3.     It adopts objective type tests only.

Functions of Diagnostic Test :

1.Classification  of Aptitude or musical level ,vocational level, intellectual level.

2. Assessment of specific abilities with regard to – level of abnormality, level of depression and anxiety  &  level of adjustment.

3. Remediation – Special education for handicapped, remedial teaching for learning weakness, counseling for mental ailment, clinical treatment for physical ailment.

4. Etiology – Study of diagnosis.

METHODS:-

1)    Testing method:- Educational testing, psychological testing  & clinical testing .

2)    Diagnostic mathematical skills test :- ( mathematical operations, decimal, previous no. next no. etc.)

Steps for Construction of Diagnostic Test:

·        Formulate the objectives

·        Analysis  the content into subtopics and its elements.

·        Prepare the final draft

·        Prepare manual of test

·        Remedial devices and measures

Diagnostic Testing in the Classroom:

Diagnostic testing must be aligned with predetermined learning objectives and should be built into the regular classroom routine. The assessments should be relatively short, valid, and free from bias. In order to accurately use diagnostic testing, instructors must be willing to modify course content and their teaching methods based on the information they receive from the assessments. This could mean covering subjects and concepts assumed to be already mastered, or not covering concepts that were originally planned if the skills and concepts have already been mastered.

Remedial Measures

Remedial instruction is the process of providing help to students who are experiencing difficulties so that they can understand and master the concept with which they are struggling. In math, each concept is the foundation for new learning, and when a student has not mastered one concept they are unable to move on to the next concept. In this case, remediation helps to get the student back on track so they can continue their learning on the math continuum.
Teaching remedial math means that we will be working with students who might be missing foundational skills that are required for learning higher level concepts. Whether because of a learning difficulty or another situation that impacted their learning, these are students, for example, who may not have mastered adding one digit numbers and are now being asked to add two-digit numbers with regrouping.

Identify the Issue:

We can't just throw a bunch of ideas or strategies at the problem and hope something works for the student. We  must first identify the specific area in which the student is struggling so we can begin to create a plan and strategies for remediation. Using the example of the student struggling with one digit addition - you need to figure out if he hasn't mastered one digit addition because he has spatial difficulties that are interfering with his ability to regroup. Or has he even mastered counting? You would first need to identify what is causing the difficulty before you can begin working to help the student learn.

The following  difficulties among the students.

1.      More than half of the students incorrectly measure the units.

2.     Most of  students do mistake in calculation part in maths.

3.     Often get confusion between the areas and volumes in the word problem and between square and cubic units.

4.      Poor understanding in the algebraic identities.

5.      Students have find difficulties in solving algebraic word problems.

6.     Difficulties in trigonometrically ratios for the beginners of trigonometric concept.

7.      Understanding in trigonometry identities.

8.     Some students are memorizing the concept without understanding.

Use a Variety of Approaches:

Math education lends itself especially well to approaching concepts from a variety of different angles. Just think of the wide variety of ways students can solve a simple addition problem. They can draw a picture of objects and count them, use manipulative, write a story, count on a number line, or count in their head. When teaching remedial math, it is important to explore as many approaches to learning as possible to help your students.
For example, we may have to teach a student who is struggling with comparing fractions. For some reason, this student may just not grasp this concept, no matter how hard they try. Sitting down with the student, you discover that the student is just staring at the fractions trying to will the answer into existence.

Conclusion:

In the present 21st century the explosion of technologies uplift the world into the heaven in the sky. It leads to globalization. We require powerful brainy citizens for this competitive world. Education can give tremendous boost to these citizens in the global society. Education should not only reflect the needs of the society but also excellence. Every effort should make to adopt our educational system today’s changing economic and social realities of the scientific world. No branch of science is complete without mathematics. Mathematical understanding and reasoning are essential components of success in all walks of life.

Diagnostic Testing which is the most important part of the teaching-learning process. It implies a detailed study of learning difficulties. Its aim is to analyze, not to assess. The nature and purpose of Diagnostic Testing is to identify the areas of difficulties where the learner commits errors.

 The stages of diagnostic testing are:

i) Identifying the students who need help.

ii) Locating the error/learning difficulties.

iii) Discovering the causal factors.

After locating the area where the difficulty lies, as a teacher we will devise some strategy to remove problems in learning and the causes due to which the learner has faced the difficulties. The strategy used by you to remove the weakness of the learner is known as remedial teaching. Diagnostic Testing leads to remedial teaching in which you have to prepare instructional material for quality learning, adopting different methodologies as per needs of the individual or a particular group.