Session Information
31 SES 01, Reading and Spelling - Comparative Approaches
Paper Session
Contribution
There is a growing awareness that changes in the way we assess educational progress has major implications for the development of teaching and learning. Research points to the fact that standardized tests such as national tests should be seen as part of the curriculum rather than as external means to evaluate curriculum effects in terms of student learning (Forsberg & Lundahl, 2010). This is mainly due to wash-back effects from high-stakes test on policies and practicies in school. In order to strengthen educational equity and increase assessment objectivity, standardized testing has for a number of years been, and is still being, intensified in the Scandinavian educational systems, as well as in many other countries (Dobson, Eggen & Smith, 2009; Egelund, 2008; Wikström, 2009). This is well known. What different tests actually measure, however, is less known.
Reading comprehension tests are often assumed to measure the same, or at least similar, constructs. Yet, reading is not a single but a multidimensional form of processing (Duke, 2005), which means that variations in terms of reading material, response format and item construction may emphasize one side of the construct at the cost of another (Keenan, Betjeman & Olson, 2008; Leslie & Caldwell, 2009; Nation & Snowling, 1997). The educational systems of Denmark, Norway and Sweden share a number of traits, and in the recent decade, the development of national test instruments, especially for reading, have been highly influenced by international surveys of student achievement. In this study, national tests of reading comprehension at the end of compulsory school in the three Scandinavian countries are compared in order to reveal the range of commonality and difference in the three test domains.
The analysis presented has aimed specifically at determining
- The variation of test domains and construct definitions in the national reading frameworks in Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
- The variation of reading material, item construction and scoring guidelines within national reading tests in Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
Much research has been devoted to identify the factors that best explain variance in comprehension, as well as to explore the intercorrelations among items and subdivisions of the construct (Cutting & Scarborough, 2006; Davis, 1968; Keenan et al., 2008; Spearitt, 1972). While some aspects of the construct may be conceptually distinguishable, such as reading processes which are frequently marked as separate skill factors in reading comprehension tests, they are not necessarily psychometrically distinct from each other (van Steensel, Oostdam & van Gelderen, 2012). At the same time, comparative analyses of dimensionality in existing frameworks indicate that item properties, textual features, and sometimes scoring rubrics are important factors when determining the scope of cognitive processing to be tested (Cutting & Scarborough, 2006; Francis, Fletcher, Catts & Tomblin, 2005).
Research in the field has also examined the impact of item format and the range of achievement variation related to changes in testing framework and methodology. Although several studies have indicated that a lion’s share of the construct may be targeted equally well by multiple-choice (MC) and constructed response (CR) formats, there are some persistent beliefs about item differences that often pertain to tradition and custom rather than to a thorough body of empirically-based knowledge. For this reason, it may be particularly useful to compare the methods for reading comprehension assessments in neighboring countries.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Cutting, L. E. & Scarborough, H. S. (2006). Prediction of reading comprehension: Relative contributions of word recognition, language proficiency, and other cognitive skills can depend on how comprehension is measured. Scientific Studies of Reading 10(3), 277-299. Davis, F. B. (1968). Research in comprehension in reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 3, 499–545. Dobson, S., Eggen, A. B., & Smith, K. (Eds.) (2009). Vurdering, prinsipper og praksis. Oslo: Gyldendal akademisk. Duke N. K. (2005). Comprehension of what for what: Comprehension as a nonunitary construct. In S.G. Paris & S.A. Stahl (Eds.), Children’s Reading Comprehension and Assessment (pp. 93–104). Mahwah, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Ass. Egelund, N. (2008). The value of international comparative studies of achievement – a Danish perspective. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 15(3), 245–251. Forsberg, E. & Lundahl, C. (2010). Kunskapsbedömningar som styrmedia. Utbildning & Demokrati, 15(3), 7–29. Francis, D. J., Fletcher, J. M., Catts, H. W., & Tomblin, J. B. (2005). Dimensions affecting the assessment of reading comprehension. In S. G. Paris & S. A. Stahl (Eds.), Children’s reading comprehension and assessment (pp. 369–394). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Haladyna, T. M. & Rodriguez, M. C. (2013). Developing and validating test items. New York: Routledge. Keenan, J. M., Betjemann, R. S. & Olson, R. K. (2008). Reading comprehension tests vary in the skills they assess: Differential dependence on decoding and oral comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 12(3), 281–300. Khalifa, H., and Weir, C. (2009). Examining reading: Research and practice in assessing second language learning. New York: Cambridge University Press. Leslie, L. & Caldwell, J. (2009). Formal and Informal Measures of Reading Comprehension. In S. E. Israel & G. G Duffy (Eds.), Handbook of research on reading comprehension (pp. 403–427). New York, NY: Routledge. Nation, K., & Snowling, M. (1997). Assessing reading difficulties: the validity and utility of current measures of reading skill. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 359–370. Spearritt, D. (1972). Identification of sub-skills of reading comprehension by maximum likelihood factor analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 8, 92–111. van Steensel, R., Oostdam, R., & van Gelderen, A. (2012). Assessing reading comprehension in adolescent low achievers: Subskills identification and task specificity. Language Testing 30(1), 3–21. Wikström, C. (2009). National curriculum assessment in England – a Swedish perspective. Educational Research, 51(2), 255–258.
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