Psychometric Characteristics of the Test of Awareness of Language Segments - Revised

Master's Degree Thesis, 1999

Phonological awareness has been found to be a strong predictor of both early and later reading achievement in children. The Test of Awareness of Language Segments was revised to address a broader range of elements of phonological awareness. The current study examined the performance of 217 elementary students, in kindergarten through fourth grades, on the six tasks of phonological awareness included on the TALS-R. Scores on each subtest and each item were used to assess internal consistency, test-retest reliability , and the "goodness" of each item as a measure of the construct element assessed by each subtest. Cronbach' s alpha measure of internal consistency yielded coefficients in the strong to moderate range for each subtest. Test-retest reliability coefficients for each subtest of the total sample, were found to be in the strong to moderate range overall. However, reliability coefficients for three subtests were weak (.02- .39) when individual grade levels were considered. Item analyses were conducted for each item. These included the item difficulty index (p-value), item discrimination index (d-value), and item-test correlations for all items on each subtest of the TALS-R. Item analyses confirmed the hypothesis that items designed to be easy were correctly answered more often than items designed to be more difficult. It also confirmed that TALS-R subtests are ordered in away that is consistent with the developmental progression of phonological awareness cited by previous authors. However, item analyses also revealed the need for substantial item revision for one subtest and supported the use of two subtests with only the youngest students. Revision of specific items in three of the subtests might be warranted.

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