Methodological issues in analog acceptability research: Are teachers' acceptability ratings of assessment methods influenced by experimental design?

The present study explored the relationship between experimental design met hod and teacher-rated acceptability of two analog approaches for assessing academic skills problems. A total of 619 general elementary education teach ers were assigned to either (a) a between-subjects group design condition ( n = 418) in which they evaluated the acceptability of one of two psychoeduc ational assessment case summaries or (b) a within-subjects group design con dition (n = 201) in which they rated the acceptability of both case summari es. Comparisons between the acceptability ratings of the curriculum-based a ssessment and published norm-referenced test protocols across design condit ions suggested that the magnitude of differences increased when the within- subjects group design condition was employed. In addition, curriculum-based assessment was consistently rated as a more acceptable method of assessmen t than published, norm-referenced tests. Results are discussed in relation to the influence of design method and the acceptability of psychoeducationa l assessment methods.