THE BOEHM TEST
OF
BASIC CONCEPTS AS A PREDICTOR OF
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN GRADES
2
AND
3
ERIKA STEINBAUER AND MARC
8.
HELLER
William
Paterson
College
of
New
Jersey
Ninety-four second- and third-graders from a suburban New Jersey school
who
had
taken the Boehm
Test
of
Basic Concepts
as
kinder arteners were
given the Stanford Achievement Test
Form
W.
The obtain2 grade scores
in each subject area
as
tested by the Atanford were then correlated with the
Boehm Test scores. The
resulting
coefficients indicated a strong association
between deficiencies in early concept mastery
as
measured by the Boehm
Test of Basic Concepts and academic achievement in the second and third
rades. These results therefore support the use of the Boehm Test of Basic
8oncepts
as
an early predictor of school achievement.
Educators agree
that
the need exists for early identification
of
those children
who might later experience academic difficulty. Early detection is desirable not
only for the retarded
or
learning disabled child, but also for others such as the
culturally deprived
or
language deficient child. Early screening tests are becoming
more widely used in kindergartens throughout our country. One such test, the
Boehm Test of Basic Concepts (BTBC), is designed to measure children’s mastery
of basic concepts considered necessary for achievement in the first years of school
(Boehm,
1967).
This test consists of
50
items which measure a child’s understanding
of Space (location, direction, orientation, dimensions), Quantity (and number),
Time, and a few other miscellaneous concepts.
No
reading ability is required. The
purpose
of
the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts is to identify individual children
whose overall level of concept mastery is low and who therefore may need special
attention, and also to identify individual concepts with which large numbers
of
children in a class may be unfamiliar (Boehm,
1971).
The Boehm Test
of
Basic Concepts has generally received favorable reviews.
The test format and its interpretive value were highly praised. The test book is
thought to be well-designed and the manual well-written and easy to understand
(e.g., Collison,
1971
;
Dahl,
1973;
Lawlor,
1972;
McCandless,
1972;
Proger,
1970).
There is, however, some disagreement as to the adequacy of the reliability and
validity reported in the test manual (Dahl,
1973;
Freeman,
1972;
Houck, Biskin,
&
Regetz,
1973;
Noll,
1970).
Content validity is the only validity reported by Boehm.
Smock
(1972)
and McCandless
(1972)
claim this
is
adequate because the items
were selected
on
the basis of relevance to currently used curriculum materials in
kindergarten, first, and second grade.
One reviewer points out that there
is a
clear lack of research
as
to how necessary
these basic concepts are to achievement in the first years of school (Noll,
1970).
Dahl
(1973)
states that
if
it can be demonstrated that successful performance on an
item is correlated highly with successful performance on curriculum tasks related
to that item, predictive validity can be claimed.
A follow-up study on the standardization sample for the Boehm Test of Basic
Concepts which correlated performance on the test with later school achievement
Requests for
re
rints should be sent to Marc
S.
Heller, De t. of Special Education] The
William
Paterson CoEege of New Jersey,
300
Pompton Rd., Wayne, &J
07470.
357