Goal Attainment Scaling

1. Goal Attainment Scaling Charmaine Driver Principal Darling Point Special School, Manly, Australia.

2. Goal Attainment Scaling Goal attainment scaling is a technique for expressing, on a common scale, the extent to which goals have been achieved e.g. as part of a student’s plan, the class program, or the school plan.

3. GAS - a new idea? GAS has a continuous record of use in the USA since it was proposed in the late 1980’s by Kiresuk and Sherman. GAS is not widely used in Education Queensland programs, although interest is increasing since the pilot initiative at Darling Point Special School.

4. What is achieved by utilizing GAS? GAS achieves an individualized, criterion-referenced measure of change, providing a clear expression of plans and outcomes. It is potentially responsive to small changes that might otherwise go unnoticed through anecdotal observation protocols.

5. What does GAS involve? GAS requires the educational team to: • Define goals for each child, program or plan • Specify a range of possible outcomes / benchmarks for each goal on a 5- or 7- point Likert scale • Use the scale to evaluate functional change during an intervention, and at the end of a pre-determined intervention period

6. Advantages of GAS • Clinical utility and flexibility • Relevance • Simple and inexpensive • Statistically powerful • Student and family involvement • Collaborative goal setting • Acceptability • Improved clarity of educational and therapy objectives

7. Other advantages • Improved conceptualization and delivery of interventions and programs • Clear line of sight between planning, program delivery, assessment and reporting • More realistic expectations of the educational program • Increased levels of satisfaction • Increased motivation towards improvement, provided by the very existence of goals

8. Limitations of GAS • Biases in goal scaling and rating • Training requirements to implement this approach • Temptation to modify goals during the period of the plan or intervention

9. Bias in the use of GAS Bias can: • Make goals overly easy to attain • Show children are making improvements that are not real • Show that interventions are succeeding when this is not the case • Show inaccurate progress of schools towards goals

10. Improving reliability and validity of GAS • Comprehensive training of raters • Adequate definitions of the levels of goal attainment • Use of multiple raters • Collaborative goal setting to ensure goals are meaningful and valid

11. Practices for success with GAS • Collaborative goal setting amongst team members • Validation by someone not directly involved in the particular program or plan

12. Goal adequacy • Ensure goal adequacy by ensuring that the goals are: • Specific and behavioural • Measurable • Accurate, understandable, attainable • Reasonable and relevant • Timely and time limited

13. Ensuring high quality GAS scales • Decide on the scale level for baseline to be consistently used • Write a clear descriptor at baseline • Write clear descriptors for the goal (at ‘+2’) to be achieved • Write clear descriptors for the other points on the scale from -3 to +3 • -3 is considerably less than baseline • -2 is less than baseline • -1 = baseline • +3 is better than anticipated • +2 = goal • +1 is considerable progress towards goal • 0 is some progress towards goal • Cross validate the scales

14. Ensuring high quality GAS scales • Make sure goals: • are meaningful for the child, family, intervention or school • reflect the primary focus of the plan • Ensure that the goal scales are reliable by utilizing cross-rater checks, to monitor and assess: • bias via overly easy goals or • problems with accuracy in goal rating

15. Scale Criteria • Provide a time period for achieving the goal • Clearly define the more important variable of change within the goal • If there is to be progressive monitoring towards goal attainment, specify the intervals for monitoring and recording

16. More Scale Criteria • Ensure that goal attainment levels are established to reflect changes in skill, knowledge or behaviour or the amount/type of support needed e.g. • -3 = completely dependent • -2 = some physical and verbal assistance required • -1 = verbal assistance required • 0 = checklist and verbal cueing or prompting required • +1 = verbal cueing / prompting required • +2 = independent with supervision • +3 = completely independent

17. More Scale Criteria • Ensure that goal attainment levels are established to reflect changes in intervention or school action / processes: • -3 = teachers disregard student preferred learning styles for students with ascertained disabilities • -2 = teachers attend to preferred learning styles for students with ascertained disabilities in some lessons • -1 = teachers attend to preferred learning styles for students with ascertained disabilities and learning support needs in some lessons • 0 = teachers attend to preferred learning styles for students with ascertained disabilities and learning support needs in most lessons • +1 = teachers attend to preferred learning styles for all students in some lessons • +2 = teachers attend to preferred learning styles for all students in most lessons • +3 = teachers attend to preferred learning styles for all students in all lessons

18. Weighting goal scales • Each goal can be given a numerical weighting corresponding to its relative importance • This is usually done on a scale of 1 to 10 or 1 to 5 • Thus success in a critical area, which has a high weighting, receives a higher outcome score than the same degree of success in a less important area, which has a lower weighting

19. GAS at Darling Point Special School • Darling Point Special School was confronted by the challenge of measuring and reporting learning for students with high support needs ascertained at level 6. • Usual testing and anecdotal data gathering processes were neither useful,nor aligned to the school’s intent to achieve educational planning to reflect individual student’s hopes and aspirations.

20. Summary benefits of GAS at Darling Point Special School • Goal attainment scaling, G.A.S. has provided teachers, therapists, students and parents/carers with a clear line of sight from planning to learning and teaching, within a culture of accountability and celebration.

21. Student Main Ascertainment Levels 2003 Student Other Ascertainment Levels 2003 Student population at Darling Point Special School

22. A Sample GAS SOCIAL PLAY • + 3 = Interacts with peers cooperatively, imitates activities • + 2 = Interacts through adult structuring play with other children 80% of occasions • + 1 = Interactive play in group - interacts with one child or adult less than 50% of occasions • 0 = Isolated play, will separate from parent within a few minutes, with support from teacher or aide, happily enters playground and classroom, needs intermittent support and encouragement from adult • - 1 = Isolated play, will separate from parent after considerable time, will enter playground and classroom following structured support from teacher or aide and bonding time with teacher or aide, totally dependent on adult for support and encouragement • - 2 = Isolated play, will not separate from parent, will not enter playground or classroom willingly, totally dependent on parent • - 3 = Isolates self from all social and play contact and interactions

23. A SAMPLE CHART

24. Achievements linked to implementation of GAS Student learning outcomes in 2003

25. Achievements linked to implementation of GAS cont. Changes in student learning achievements in all curriculum areas since 1998

26. WHOLE OF SCHOOL REPORTING • Convert GAS scores to z-scores

27. WHOLE OF SCHOOL REPORTING cont. • Convert z-scores to T-scores (with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10) (This eliminates negative GAS scores).

28. WHOLE OF SCHOOL REPORTING cont. • Weight each T-score • Calculate mean weighted T-score • Compare mean weighted T-scores across subjects, cohorts etc.

29. WHOLE OF SCHOOL REPORTING cont. • If GAS scores are correlated, use the formula below

30. TEACHER REPORTS • Developing the scales is difficult at first and requires support, mentoring, and teamwork • GAS provides a useful way of monitoring student achievements • GAS provides a simple, straightforward way to monitor school progress school goals • GAS is simple and quick to use once the scales are established • GAS assists in evaluating the effectiveness of interventions

31. TEACHER REPORTS • GAS enhances teamwork and family engagement • GAS provides clear data about achievements which otherwise are often difficult to detect • Seeing improvements reduces frustration, improves confidence, risk-taking, self esteem, and morale • GAS and associated charts support communication within teams and agencies

32. TEACHER REPORTS • GAS gives a clear agenda for professional conversations • GAS provides a structure for problem-definition, evaluation, planning and reporting • GAS provides a means of visually and statistically analyzing data and reporting

33. Teachers using GAS – a simple, effective methodology

34. Teacher and student share progress using a GAS chart

35. Bibliography Kiresuk, T., Smith, A. & Cardillo, J.E. (1994). Goal Attainment Scaling: Application, Theory, and Measurement. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, London. King, G.A., McDougall, J., Palisano, R.J., Gritzan, J. & Tucker, M.A. (1999). Goal Attainment Scaling: Its Use in Evaluating Pediatric Therapy Programs. Physical and Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics, 19, pp. 31-52. MacKay, G. & Lundie, J. (1998). GAS Released Again: Proposals for the Development of Goal Attainment Scaling. International Journalof Disabilities, Development, and Education, 45, pp. 217-231. MacDougall, J., King, G.A., Malloy0-Miller, T., Gritzan, J., Tucker, M.A., & Evans, J. (1999). A Checklist to Determine the Methods of Interventions used in School-based Therapy: Development and Pilot Testing. Oren, T. & Ogletree, B.T. (2000). Program Evaluation in Classrooms for Students with Autism: Student Outcomes and Program Processes. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 15, pp. 170-175.