The Student Integration Survey: Development of an early alert assessment and reporting system

This study describes efforts to develop a self-report rating scale (Student Integration Survey: SIS) that provides diagnostic information about students with academic and/or social integration difficulties. Data obtained from administration of the SIS to incoming freshmen at a postsecondary technical institution for the deaf in the fall of 1990 and 1991 were subjected to Rasch rating scale analysis. Fit of data to the measurement model resulted in a set of 28 positive and negative statements that empirically defined the concept of institutional integration in terms of their calibration hierarchy. This type of instrument calibration has the potential of providing person measures and item scale values that are invariant over a useful range of comparisons. The early alert reporting system provides an evaluation and diagnosis of observed responses relevant to expected responses for individual respondees. The substance and methods employed may provide a model for other integration assessment efforts.This research was conducted in the course of an agreement between the Rochester Institute of Technology and the U.S. Department of Education.