Content validity to support the use of a computer-based phonological awareness screening and monitoring assessment (Com-PASMA) in the classroom

Abstract

Purpose. This study investigated the content validity of a computer-based phonological awareness (PA) screening and monitoring assessment (Com-PASMA) designed to evaluate school-entry PA abilities. Establishing content validity by confirming that test items suitably ‘fit’ and sample a spectrum of difficulty levels is critical for ensuring educators can deduce accurate information to comprehensively differentiate curricular reading instruction.

Method. Ninety-five children, inclusive of 21 children with spoken language impairment, participated in a 1-year longitudinal study whereby the Com-PASMA was administered at the start, middle and end of the school year.

Result. Estimates of content validity using Rasch Model analysis demonstrated that: (1) rhyme oddity and initial phoneme identity tasks were most appropriate at school-entry and sampled a spectrum of difficulty levels, (2) more challenging phoneme level tasks (e.g. final phoneme identity, phoneme blending, phoneme deletion and phoneme segmentation) became increasingly appropriate and differentiated between high- and low-ability students by the middle and end of the first year of school and (3) letter-knowledge tasks were appropriate but declined in their ability to differentiate student ability as the year progressed.

Conclusion. Findings demonstrate that the Com-PASMA has sufficient content validity to measure and differentiate between the PA abilities of 5-year-old children on entry to school.

Keywords::

• Phonological awareness
• classroom assessment
• reading development
• content validity
• computer-based assessment

Acknowledgements

The authors extend thanks to the children, families and educators involved in this study. Gratitude is expressed towards the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission for financial support in the implementation of this project.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Supplementary material available online

Supplementary Tables A, B and C to be found online at http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/17549507.2015.1016107.