Reading Comprehension Passages Research Articles

Accessibility of Segmented Reading Comprehension Passages for Students with Disabilities

This study explores factors that affect the accessibility of reading comprehension assessments for students with disabilities in grade 8 public school classrooms. The study consisted of assessing students using reading comprehension passages that were broken down into shorter “segments” or “chunks” in order to assess the validity and effectiveness of segmenting and the reliability of assessment in segmenting. The results of the segmenting study indicated that: (1) segmenting did not affect reading performance of students without disabilities; suggesting that it does not compromise the validity of reading assessment; (2) segmenting did not affect reading performance of students with disabilities; and (3) the segmented version had a higher reliability for students with disabilities without affecting the reliability for students without disabilities.

ELECTRONIC SOURCES AS INPUT TO GRE® READING COMPREHENSION ITEM DEVELOPMENT: SOURCEFINDER PROTOTYPE EVALUATION

ABSTRACTThis evaluation study compares the performance of a prototype tool called SourceFinder against the performance of highly trained human test developers. SourceFinder — a specialized search engine developed to locate source material for Graduate Record Examinations (GRE®) reading comprehension passages — employs a variety of shallow linguistic features to model the search criteria employed by expert test developers, to automate the source selection process, and to reduce source‐processing time. The current evaluation provides detailed information about the aspects of source variation that are not well modeled by the current prototype. Approaches for enhancing performance in identified areas are discussed. The present study also provides a more explicit description of the source selection task, and a rich data set for developing a less subjective, more explicit definition of the types of documents preferred by test developers.

USING A NEW STATISTICAL MODEL FOR TESTLETS TO SCORE TOEFL

ABSTRACTStandard item response theory (IRT) models fit to examination responses ignore the fact that sets of items (testlets) often are matched with a single common stimuli (e.g., a reading comprehension passage). In this setting, all items given to an examinee are unlikely to be conditionally independent (given examinee proficiency). Models that assume conditional independence will overestimate the precision with which examinee proficiency is measured. Overstatement of precision may lead to inaccurate inferences as well as prematurely ending an examination in which the stopping rule is based on the estimated standard error of examinee proficiency (e.g., an adaptive test). The standard three parameter IRT model was modified to include an additional random effect for items nested within the same testlet (Wainer, Bradlow, and Du, 2000). This parameter, γ, characterizes the amount of local dependence in a testlet.We fit 86 TOEFL testlets (50 reading comprehension and 36 listening comprehension) with the new model, and obtained a value for the variance of γ for each testlet. We compared the standard parameters [discrimination (a), difficulty (b), and guessing (c)] with what is obtained through traditional modeling. We found that difficulties were well estimated either way, but estimates of both a and c were biased if conditional independence is incorrectly assumed. Of greater import, we found that test information was substantially over‐estimated when conditional independence was incorrectly assumed.

Using a New Statistical Model for Testlets to Score TOEFL

Standard item response theory (IRT) models fit to examination responses ignore the fact that sets of items (testlets) often are matched with a single common stimulus (e.g., a reading comprehension passage). In this setting, all items given to an examinee are unlikely to be conditionally independent (given examinee proficiency). Models that assume conditional independence will overestimate the precision with which examinee proficiency is measured. Overstatement of precision may lead to inaccurate inferences as well as prematurely ended examinations in which the stopping rule is based on the estimated standard error of examinee proficiency (e.g., an adaptive test). The standard three parameter IRT model was modified to include an additional random effect for items nested within the same testlet (Wainer, Bradlow, & Du, 2000). This parameter, γ characterizes the amount of local dependence in a testlet.We fit 86 TOEFL testlets (50 reading comprehension and 36 listening comprehension) with the new model, and obtained a value for the variance of γ for each testlet. We compared the standard parameters (discrimination (a), difficulty (b) and guessing (c)) with what is obtained through traditional modeling. We found that difficulties were well estimated either way, but estimates of both a and c were biased if conditional independence is incorrectly assumed. Of greater import, we found that test information was substantially over‐estimated when conditional independence was incorrectly assumed.

The Relationship Between Ethnolinguistic Identity and English Language Achievement for Native Russian Speakers and Native Hebrew Speakers in Israel

In the last decade Israel has witnessed the immigration of close to one million native Russian speakers. One of the implications of this influx of newcomers, in a country already dedicated to the absorption of people from many different ethnolinguistic backgrounds, is that issues related to language and identity are receiving renewed attention. This new wave of immigrants has added large numbers of students to Israel's six universities, thus giving new impetus to the role of identity in language achievement. The present paper discusses a study that investigated the relationship among identity, affective variables and achievement in English as a foreign language. Participants in the study were 135 native Hebrew speakers and 53 native Russian speakers studying English as a foreign language at the advanced level at Bar Ilan University in Israel. Variables included ethnolinguistic identity, self-confidence, instrumental and integrative orientation and emotional distance. Achievement measures consisted of teacher evaluations, final examination grades, reading comprehension passages, written expression and a cloze passage. Results showed that ethnolinguistic identity was a greater predictor of achievement than any of the other variables.

A BAYESIAN RANDOM EFFECTS MODEL FOR TESTLETS

ABSTRACTStandard item response theory (IRT) models fit to dichotomous examination responses ignore the fact that sets of items (testlets) often come from a single common stimuli (e.g. a reading comprehension passage). In this setting, all items given to an examinee are unlikely to be conditionally independent (given examinee proficiency). Models that assume conditional independence will overestimate the precision with which examinee proficiency is measured. Overstatement of precision may lead to inaccurate inferences such as prematurely ending an examination in which the stopping rule is based on the estimated standard error of examinee proficiency (e.g an adaptive test). To model examinations that may be a mixture of independent items and testlets, we modified one standard IRT model to include an additional random effect for items nested within the same testlet. We use a Bayesian framework to facilitate posterior inference via a Data Augmented Gibbs Sampler (DAGS, Tanner and Wong 1987). The modified and standard IRT models are both applied to a data set from a disclosed form of the SAT. We also provide simulation results that indicates that the degree of precision bias is a function of the variability of the testlet effects, as well as the testlet design.

Reading Performance of First Graders: The Effects of Pictorial Distractors

Forty-four matched pairs of Israeli first graders were administered reading comprehension passages. Both experimental and control subjects read one text at their self-paced reading rate, followed by a similar passage that included pictorial distractors within the text. Control subjects read the text with distractors at their own pace. Experimental subjects, however, were prompted to read it at a rate that equalled the fastest rate at which they had read a correctly answered passage in the self-paced condition. In spite of the distractors, reading at a faster pace increased comprehension and reduced errors. Although distractors did not significantly interfere with reading, they were subsequently better recognized by the control subjects.

The Effects of Comprehension Monitoring Training on the Reading Competence of Learning Disabled and Regular Class Students

Thirty-six 10- to 12-year-old learning disabled (LD) children with reading problems and 36 regular class children matched with the LD children on reading age were assigned to four training conditions, designated as read-reread, self-questioning and underlining, self-questioning only, and underlining only techniques. Training was conducted in small groups over a sequence of four half-hour sessions. Subjects were trained to utilize the prescribed techniques while reading comprehension passages. Results indicated that the LD children in all three experimental groups (SU, S, U) achieved significantly higher scores on the comprehension tests than those in the control (R) condition, whereas data on the regular class students in all four conditions revealed nonsignificant differences. The findings demonstrated the benefit of training LD students to use metacognitive activities in reading comprehension.

Woodcock and PIAT Reading Scores: A Lack of Equivalency

Using each student as his or her own control, 76 students in grades 2 through 6 from rural to urban localities in upper east Tennessee were administered the Peabody Individual Achievement Test and the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests. Comparisons were made between the PIAT Reading Recognition and Woodcock Word Identification tests and between the PIAT Reading Comprehension and Woodcock Passage Comprehension tests. While the correlations for the total group were highly significant in both comparisons, a breakdown by grade level demonstrated variability in the results, ranging from not significant to highly significant. In assessing the comparability of the obtained scores, the scores from the total grouup were significantly different. However, a breakdown by grade level found the same variability as for the correlations. Concern for errors in diagnosis is expressed and a call for the development of local norms is made.

Separate vs. Combined Categories for Mental Retardation and Specific Learning Disabilities?

right. 5. Using unjustified formats for reading comprehension passages and placing them in separate boxes set off from the sentences testing comprehension. 6. Using continuation arrows and stop signs to organize the flow of items within the tests. The results of our study suggest that LD students' competence is enhanced by the use of tests which include the above modifications. Simple enlargement of type size, however, was found to have little practical performance payoff in the assessment of LD students' minimum competence.

Effects of Systematic Self-Monitoring and Self-Reinforcement in Children's Management of Test Performances

Summary The effects of systematic self-monitoring and self-reinforcement components within children's management of test performance were studied. Fourth grade children's (N = 85) test performances were measured on an experimenter-constructed curriculum of history facts, Spanish-English word pairs, and reading comprehension passages for six sessions. Children who systematically self-monitored did not increase their test performance over time and did not score differently from children who did not systematically self-monitor. Self-reinforcement resulted in significant increases over baseline whether or not children systematically self-monitored. The role of self-monitoring in assessment and in relation to self-reinforcement is discussed.