My First Test-Administering Experience
I recently got a job as a research assistant in a lab, and one of my jobs is to administer a test! At my first experience administering last week there were many situations that made me think of the course material.
At the lab we administer a multiple object tracking task (MOT) to students around ages 12 -17 with intellectual disabilities, a majority of which have autism.
The following are a few things I noticed:
1. The first time that I administered the test instead of my supervisor, the students were very distracted by my presence. I was a new face that they didn't know so they kept looking over at me. I had to remind them to pay attention to the task. There are 5 or 6 different research assistants so it could take the students a while to get used to all of us. This may make it more difficult for them to sustain attention compared to if it had been the same person every day.
2. Sometimes the students do get distracted by something, and they miss the part where which objects to follow is indicated on the screen. In this case, I must discount the trial. If the students are constantly distracted and having a very difficult time concentrating that day, there may be no or very little data for them on that test day. Futhermore, sometimes the students don’t feel like doing the task, and we cannot convince them to participate. This is very unpredictable but also inevitably effects the data
3. The students do not get “part marks” if they successfully followed 2/3 objects. This is the thing that is the easiest logistically and makes the data the most clear. However, in the same category of responses you have students able to follow only two objects, and students who are able to follow zero objects. This could actually represent a wide range of abilities.
What I have really learned from working in this lab is that so many things can change your results. The mood of the student, the time of day, what they had for breakfast, and of course who was administering the test are all influencing factors. Dr. Stotland is always mentioning that there are so many variables, but seeing it for myself really helped me appreciate how difficult it is to administer tests and be confident with your results.
