• Meaning of Diagnostic
• Types of Diagnostic Test
• Functions of Diagnosis
• Methods of Diagnosis
• Steps for Construction Diagnostic

Assessing Readiness Levels of Learners - Syllabus and Study Material

For assessing readiness level of learners and find out the errors, firstly we construct diagnostic test. A diagnostic test in one kind of educational tests. These tests have two purposes – prognostic purpose and diagnostic purpose. The prognostic means to measure the extent and level of learning outcomes or attainments of the students in a specific subjects which has been taught to them. The, diagnosis means to identify the causes of their weakness of their poor attainment of the students. The prognostic and diagnostic functions are complementary to each other and both are essential in educational measurement and evaluation.

Meaning of Diagnostic Test

A diagnostic’ test is designed to reveal specific weakness or failures to learn in some subject of study such as reading or arithmetic. In a diagnostic test the main interest is the performance on individuals items or on small groups of highly similar items. In the diagnostic test score or mark is not assigned for the correct answer but wrong provide the basis for the causes of his failure.

The term “diagnostic” as applied to tests is one fraught with danger and ambiguity. The educationists consider the certain test as diagnostic while others are achievement tests which have no diagnostic characteristics. A diagnostic test undertakes to provide a picture of strengths and weaknesses. Hence, any test that yields more than a single over-all score is in a sense, diagnostic. Even if there are only two part scores, for example, one for arithmetic computation and one for arithmetic reasoning, the test makes it possible to say that the student performed better on computation than in reasoning answers to problems. It means that the diagnostic tests are qualitative not the quantitative. A diagnostic lest does not yield the total scores of an individual in a subject which he has studied and taken the test.

Diagnostic tests are those which help us to know the particular strength and weakness of the student. These tests are also known as analytical tests. The correct answer provides his strength and wrong answer indicates his weakness in the content of the individual. The achievement tests provide the over all scores on the basis of correct answers of the subject items. The wrong answers are assigned zero marks. These attainment tests do not provide reason for the poor scores of an individual.

Types of Diagnostic Test The diagnostic tests are broadly classified into two categories

• Educational Diagnostic Tests are various types related to different subjects for specific level or class or grade.
• The Clinical Diagnostic Tests are also of several type relating to hearing, vision and other aspects.
  The regular classroom teacher should make use of the clinical specialist. The knowledge about the students, the classroom teachers can be more confident in their orientation towards group approaches. The teacher ould expect normal actions and behaviors on the part of all students. They would be prepaid, however, to deal with reasonable departure from normal behavior, and for unusual cases, the teacher would feel free to finvite the person with special skill in diagnosing and treating such cases to bring them at par to the normal students of the class.[/su_list]

Functions of Diagnosis It is an individual activity, even then it has four functions

• Classification
  (a) Intellectual level,
  (b) Vocational level,
  (c) Aptitude or Musical level
• Assessment of Specific ability
  (a) Level of adjustment
  (b) Level of abnormality
  (c) Level of depression and anxiety.
• Ecology function refers to study the diagnosis, or causes
• Remediation may be of following types –
  (a) Clinical treatment for physical ailments
  (b) Counseling for mental ailments
  (c) Remedial teaching for learning weakness
  (d) Special education for handicapped.

These function are highly individualized.

Methods of Diagnosis

In view of the above functions, the following-methods are used for diagnosis-

• Observation method: It is most popular method used for both prognosis as well as for diagnosic. It is used for children because the tests can not he administered on them. It has the subjective method even then it is most commonly used.
• Testing methods refers to several type of testing procedure used for diagnosis
  (a) Clinical testing method
  (b) Psychological testing method
  (c) Educational testing method
  It has been mentioned that the teacher has to invite other skilled persons to know the deficiencies of the students to provide proper remediation.

Steps for Construction of Diagnostic Test
The following steps are used for preparing the diagnostic tests. Formulation of objectives and outline of the content or topic

• Formulation of objectives and outline of the content or topic.
• Content analysis is into sub-topics and its elements
  (a) Sequence of sub-topics and its elements within the sub-topic.
  (b) Sequence of learning points.
• Identify in difficulty order of sub-topics.
• Deciding the types of the items.
• Preparing items and tryout.
• Item analysis of test items and modification of items.
• Analysis of logical sequence of content by preparing ‘Scalogram’ given in the chapter ‘transfer of learning’.
• Preparing the final draft of the test.
• Preparing manual of the test and
• Remedial devices or measures