Praxis PLT K-6 Study Guide with
Complete Solutions
Ability Tests - ANSWER-Standardized tests used to evaluate an individual's
performance in a specific area.
Ex. A test designed to test a person's physical abilities needed for a particular job such
as a police officer or firefighter.
Abraham Maslow - ANSWER--Proposed that motivation is the result of a person's
attempt at fulfilling five basic needs.
-Developed the Hierarchy of Needs in which lower needs must be satisfied before
higher needs can be met.
Accommodation - ANSWER-When the child tried the old schema on a new object and
modeled it to fit the new subject and be re-categorized.
Ex. The boy father explained to the son that the man wasn't a clown. Even though his
hair was like a clown, he wasn't wearing a funny costume or doing silly things to make
people laugh. With this new knowledge, the child was able to change his schema of
"clown" and make this idea fit better to the standard concept of "clown".
Acculturation - ANSWER-A process of learning and adopting the customs and values of
another culture.
Achievement Tests - ANSWER-Written for a variety of subjects and levels designed to
measure a student's knowledge or proficiency in something that has been taught or
learned.
Ex. ACT, SAT, STAR, A comprehensive final in your Spanish class, etc.
Age-Equivalent Scoring - ANSWER-A comparison of your child's performance
compared to age groups whose average scores are in the same range.
For example, if your 9-year-old child scores a 42 raw score on a test, and that score is
average for 8-year-olds, his age equivalent score would be 8.
Albert Bandura - ANSWER--Believed children learn by observing others. (vicarious
learning)
-Distributed cognition: in which a person is able to learn more with another or in a group
than he or she might be able to do alone.
-Bobo Doll Experiment
-Vicarious Learning
-Developed the four mediational processes
,Alternative Assessments - ANSWER-Students originate a response to a task or
question
Such responses could include demonstrations, exhibits, portfolios, presentations, or
essays.
American Federation of Teachers - ANSWER-Formed on April 15, 1916 with the
purpose of being a labor union.
It was built to protect the labor rights of teachers, paraprofessionals, school-related
personnel, local, state, and federal employees, higher education faculty and staff, as
well as nurses and other healthcare related professionals.
Americans with Disabilities Act 1990 - ANSWER-A civil rights law that prohibits
discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including
jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the
general public.
Analytical Rubrics - ANSWER-Two-dimensional rubrics with levels of achievement as
columns and assessment criteria as rows. Allows you to assess participants'
achievements based on multiple criteria using a single rubric. You can assign different
weights (value) to different criteria and include an overall achievement by totaling the
criteria.
Analytical Scoring - ANSWER-Provides students with at least a rating score for each
criterion. Used for constructed response questions.
Anectdotal Notes - ANSWER-Written notes teachers maintain based on their
observations of individual children.
Aptitude Tests - ANSWER-Designed to assess what a person is capable of doing or to
predict what a person is able to learn or do given the right education and instruction.
Assimilation - ANSWER-When the child uses the schema to observe a new object.
Ex. A 2 year old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair
on the sides. To his father's horror, the toddler shouts, "Clown, clown!"
Behavior Intervention Plan - ANSWER-An individualized plan created for targeting a
specific problem behavior. These plans contain intervention strategies that are used to
address problem behaviors in the classroom, the rewards for positive behavior,
behavior goals to be reached, progress monitoring details, and a date for review.
Behavior really has four primary functions:
1. Sensory: The behavior feels good or meets a sensory need.
, 2. Tangible: To receive a specific item or activity.
3. Escape: Avoidance; to be free from a task, from a person or group, the environment,
etc.
4. Attention: To receive attention from peers or adults.
Behavioral Assessment - ANSWER-A method used in the field of psychology to
observe, describe, explain, predict and sometimes correct behavior. Through
observation, specific details about the behavior can be gathered.
For example, Sara is five-year-old girl who has started getting into trouble at school.
She has been sent to the office three times in one week and is now crying and refusing
to go to school. What could be going on with Sara? A behavioral assessment might be
the next step toward answering this question.
Behaviorism - ANSWER-View learning as a process of accessing and changing
associations between stimuli and responses.
Benjamin Bloom - ANSWER--Created Bloom's Taxonomy
-Impacted the way educators write lesson objectives, plan learning activities, and
assess student performance.
Bernard Weiner's Attribution Theory - ANSWER-Attributions refer to the process of
interpreting the causes for a specific event or behavior. Attributions are part of our
attempt at interpreting and understanding our experiences, behaviors, and the
behaviors of others. Whenever we ask ourselves why we behaved in a certain way, we
are making attributions to our behavior.
Bernard Weiner proposed a theory that looked at how people interpret success and
failure. According to Weiner, humans feel the need to explain both success and failure,
although this need is more prevalent in situations in which the outcome was not
unexpected. We attribute our successes and failures to four things:
1. Ability: For instance, a person says, 'I have always been a good dancer.'
2. Effort: The same person says, 'I worked hard and studied those dance moves for
hours.'
3. Task difficulty: The person says, 'Those dance moves were really easy.'
4. Luck: Such as, 'I was lucky that I was already familiar with those dance moves.'
Our perceptions of why we succeeded or failed influence how we perform tasks in the
future. For example, if you received an A on a quiz and attributed it to the amount of
effort you put in, you will likely continue to work hard on all of your quizzes to ensure
your success.
Complete Solutions
Ability Tests - ANSWER-Standardized tests used to evaluate an individual's
performance in a specific area.
Ex. A test designed to test a person's physical abilities needed for a particular job such
as a police officer or firefighter.
Abraham Maslow - ANSWER--Proposed that motivation is the result of a person's
attempt at fulfilling five basic needs.
-Developed the Hierarchy of Needs in which lower needs must be satisfied before
higher needs can be met.
Accommodation - ANSWER-When the child tried the old schema on a new object and
modeled it to fit the new subject and be re-categorized.
Ex. The boy father explained to the son that the man wasn't a clown. Even though his
hair was like a clown, he wasn't wearing a funny costume or doing silly things to make
people laugh. With this new knowledge, the child was able to change his schema of
"clown" and make this idea fit better to the standard concept of "clown".
Acculturation - ANSWER-A process of learning and adopting the customs and values of
another culture.
Achievement Tests - ANSWER-Written for a variety of subjects and levels designed to
measure a student's knowledge or proficiency in something that has been taught or
learned.
Ex. ACT, SAT, STAR, A comprehensive final in your Spanish class, etc.
Age-Equivalent Scoring - ANSWER-A comparison of your child's performance
compared to age groups whose average scores are in the same range.
For example, if your 9-year-old child scores a 42 raw score on a test, and that score is
average for 8-year-olds, his age equivalent score would be 8.
Albert Bandura - ANSWER--Believed children learn by observing others. (vicarious
learning)
-Distributed cognition: in which a person is able to learn more with another or in a group
than he or she might be able to do alone.
-Bobo Doll Experiment
-Vicarious Learning
-Developed the four mediational processes
,Alternative Assessments - ANSWER-Students originate a response to a task or
question
Such responses could include demonstrations, exhibits, portfolios, presentations, or
essays.
American Federation of Teachers - ANSWER-Formed on April 15, 1916 with the
purpose of being a labor union.
It was built to protect the labor rights of teachers, paraprofessionals, school-related
personnel, local, state, and federal employees, higher education faculty and staff, as
well as nurses and other healthcare related professionals.
Americans with Disabilities Act 1990 - ANSWER-A civil rights law that prohibits
discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including
jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the
general public.
Analytical Rubrics - ANSWER-Two-dimensional rubrics with levels of achievement as
columns and assessment criteria as rows. Allows you to assess participants'
achievements based on multiple criteria using a single rubric. You can assign different
weights (value) to different criteria and include an overall achievement by totaling the
criteria.
Analytical Scoring - ANSWER-Provides students with at least a rating score for each
criterion. Used for constructed response questions.
Anectdotal Notes - ANSWER-Written notes teachers maintain based on their
observations of individual children.
Aptitude Tests - ANSWER-Designed to assess what a person is capable of doing or to
predict what a person is able to learn or do given the right education and instruction.
Assimilation - ANSWER-When the child uses the schema to observe a new object.
Ex. A 2 year old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair
on the sides. To his father's horror, the toddler shouts, "Clown, clown!"
Behavior Intervention Plan - ANSWER-An individualized plan created for targeting a
specific problem behavior. These plans contain intervention strategies that are used to
address problem behaviors in the classroom, the rewards for positive behavior,
behavior goals to be reached, progress monitoring details, and a date for review.
Behavior really has four primary functions:
1. Sensory: The behavior feels good or meets a sensory need.
, 2. Tangible: To receive a specific item or activity.
3. Escape: Avoidance; to be free from a task, from a person or group, the environment,
etc.
4. Attention: To receive attention from peers or adults.
Behavioral Assessment - ANSWER-A method used in the field of psychology to
observe, describe, explain, predict and sometimes correct behavior. Through
observation, specific details about the behavior can be gathered.
For example, Sara is five-year-old girl who has started getting into trouble at school.
She has been sent to the office three times in one week and is now crying and refusing
to go to school. What could be going on with Sara? A behavioral assessment might be
the next step toward answering this question.
Behaviorism - ANSWER-View learning as a process of accessing and changing
associations between stimuli and responses.
Benjamin Bloom - ANSWER--Created Bloom's Taxonomy
-Impacted the way educators write lesson objectives, plan learning activities, and
assess student performance.
Bernard Weiner's Attribution Theory - ANSWER-Attributions refer to the process of
interpreting the causes for a specific event or behavior. Attributions are part of our
attempt at interpreting and understanding our experiences, behaviors, and the
behaviors of others. Whenever we ask ourselves why we behaved in a certain way, we
are making attributions to our behavior.
Bernard Weiner proposed a theory that looked at how people interpret success and
failure. According to Weiner, humans feel the need to explain both success and failure,
although this need is more prevalent in situations in which the outcome was not
unexpected. We attribute our successes and failures to four things:
1. Ability: For instance, a person says, 'I have always been a good dancer.'
2. Effort: The same person says, 'I worked hard and studied those dance moves for
hours.'
3. Task difficulty: The person says, 'Those dance moves were really easy.'
4. Luck: Such as, 'I was lucky that I was already familiar with those dance moves.'
Our perceptions of why we succeeded or failed influence how we perform tasks in the
future. For example, if you received an A on a quiz and attributed it to the amount of
effort you put in, you will likely continue to work hard on all of your quizzes to ensure
your success.
