Cleveland Metropolitan School District psychologists target an increase in student engagement, time and cost savings with Q-interactive
Pearson announced that more than 1 million clinical assessment subtests have been administered on Q-interactive, a digital system used by psychologists and speech-language pathologists.
Designed for use in schools, clinics, hospitals, private practice and universities, Q-interactive allows clinicians to administer tests via two iPads connected with Bluetooth.
Q-interactive is intended to improve accuracy, reduce testing time, increase flexibility and allow for more personalized assessment through features including real-time scoring, audio recording, and on-the-fly editing of tests.
Next page: How an Ohio district is using Q-interactive
Cleveland Metropolitan School District is using Q-interactive to deliver clinical assessments. A team of more than 80 school psychologists began the transition from paper assessments to Q-interactive in the 2014-15 school year.
As her department’s technology assessment chair, school psychologist Rachael Folkman is managing the implementation.
“When we evaluated Q-interactive as our assessment delivery tool, we realized that it would allow us to ensure that our psychologists have the right protocols to use with students on hand right when they need them,” she said. “In addition, the platform provides us with significant time and cost-savings when it comes to ordering, storing and managing traditional assessment kits.”
Continuing, she said, “Best of all, we find that students are more engaged when taking assessments and rapport is built more quickly because of the tablet environment.”
Folkman said that most of the district’s psychologists travel from school to school and, in the past, had to transport heavy test kits, with all of the supporting manipulatives. She said, “The trunks of our cars were filled with crates of files and boxes of kits. Now with carrying just the iPads, it would be hard to go back to the traditional kits.”
The district rolled out Q-interactive incrementally over the 2014-15 school year, using a combination of digital and paper assessments while the school psychologists participated in both small group and 1:1 training on the platform. Full implementation will begin with the start of the 2015-16 school year.
Prior to inclusion in the Q-interactive library, each new type of subtest undergoes an equivalency study to evaluate whether scores from Q-interactive testing are interchangeable with those scored from paper-and-pencil testing. The assessment library offers an array of test batteries and subtests for assessing ability, achievement, memory, executive function and language. Visit www.helloq.com/home for more information.
Material from a press release was used in this report.
- Students need clarity on their postsecondary pathways - October 11, 2024
- AI use guide helps students navigate AI in learning - October 8, 2024
- How a free library program helped a Bosnian immigrant finish high school (and college) - October 7, 2024