Abstract
Recent research suggests using multiple screening measures to identify students at risk for academic difficulties may decrease the number of students incorrectly identified as such. Gated frameworks in which students that score below a cut-score on an initial measure are assessed with a follow-up measure have been recommended. Researchers have posited that gated screening practices that use measures that explain unique variance in the outcome of interest will yield optimal results. We assessed the degree to which the correlation between screening measures and an outcome, the correlation among screening measures, and cut-score thresholds influenced diagnostic accuracy outcomes. Screening measures that were highly correlated with one another were less effective at reducing false positive classifications than screeners that were less correlated. Further, using screeners that were highly correlated with one another yielded slight but statistically significant reductions in false positive rates compared to using results from a single screening measure.
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Van Norman, E.R., Nelson, P.M., Klingbeil, D.A. et al. Gated Screening Frameworks for Academic Concerns: the Influence of Redundant Information on Diagnostic Accuracy Outcomes. Contemp School Psychol 23, 152–162 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-018-0183-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-018-0183-0