Marilyn L. Abbott

A Confirmatory Approach to Differential Item Functioning on an ESL Reading Assessment.

In this article, I describe a practical application of the Roussos and Stout (1996) multidimensional analysis framework for interpreting group performance differences on an ESL reading proficiency test. Although a variety of statistical methods have been developed for flagging test items that function differentially for equal ability examinees from different ethnic, linguistic, or gender groups, the standard differential item functioning (DIF) detection and review procedures have not been very useful in explaining why DIF occurs in the flagged items (Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing 1999). To address this problem, Douglas, Roussos and Stout (1996) developed a confirmatory approach to DIF, which is used to test DIF hypotheses that are generated from theory and substantive item analyses. In the study described in this paper, DIF and differential bundle functioning (DBF) analyses were conducted to determine whether groups of reading test items, classified according to a bottom-up, top-down reading strategy framework, functioned differentially for equal ability Arabic and Mandarin ESL learners. SIBTEST (Stout and Roussos, 1999) analyses revealed significant systematic group differences in two of the bottom-up and two of the top-down reading strategy categories. These results demonstrate the utility of employing a theoretical framework for interpreting group differences on a reading test.

Bilingual Deaf Students' Phonological Awareness in ASL and Reading Skills in English

The sources of knowledge that individuals use to make similarity judgments about words are thought to tap underlying phonological representations. This study addresses the issue of segmental representation by investigating bilingual deaf students’ (a) awareness of American Sign Language (ASL) phonological structure; (b) the relationships between ASL phonological awareness (ASL-PA) and written English word recognition and reading comprehension skill, and (c) the question of whether age and/or reading ability would differentially affect performance on an ASL-PA task in fifty bilingual deaf children (ages 7–18) attending schools for deaf children in Western Canada. In the ASL-PA task, minimal contrasts between ASL parameters (handshape, movement, and location; H, M, and L, respectively) were systematically manipulated. The results show significant differences in deaf students’ ASL phonological awareness, with discrimination accuracy improving with age and reading ability. Significant relationships between children’s second language (L2) reading skills and first language (L1) phonological awareness skills were found. Evidence of rich metalinguistic knowledge that children with developing L1 phonological skills bring to the acquisition of L2 reading skills may have practical implications for the education of bilingual deaf children.

Equitable Assessment for Hearing and Deaf English Language Learners: An Investigation of the Impact of Verbal Load on PASS Processes

In both research and practice, there are long-standing concerns regarding how to ensure the valid and equitable assessment of English language learners (ELLs) and students from nonmainstream backgrounds (Solano-Flores, & Trumbull, 2003). Most conventional measures of cognitive processing are language-laden and tend to confound language proficiency with cognitive abilities. When such assessments are used with ELLs, these students may be misidentified as learning disabled and inappropriately placed in special education programs. Alternative assessments, such as nonverbal measures of intelligence, do not measure as wide a range of abilities as established intelligence tests and, as a result, are not strong predictors of academic performance. Therefore, results from nonverbal measures should not be used as substitutes for conventional measures when making high stakes classification and placement decisions for limited language proficiency ELLs. Because the Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, Successive (PASS; Das, Naglieri, & Kirby, 1994) framework has been demonstrated to be a valid predictor of academic achievement (see Kroesbergen, Van Luit, & van Viersen, this volume), we speculated that low verbal load assessments that correspond to the PASS framework may provide more valid results for ELLs and thereby be more appropriate for use with limited proficiency ELLs than conventional and nonverbal measures of cognitive functioning. In this chapter, we report on the development of a computerized cognitive assessment battery (CCAB) designed to examine the impact of verbal load on PASS processes. To ensure that the computerized tasks were functioning correctly, we initially pilot tested the tasks with three groups of university students (hearing ELL, deaf ELL, and a monolingual control group) in Phase 1 of the study. In Phase 2, the CCAB was piloted with a small sample of Grade 3 students (hearing ELL, deaf ELL, and monolingual control groups). Although the empirical results from this small-scale pilot study were inconclusive, it is our hope that with further refinement and pilot testing of low load CCAB measures, the CCAB will offer a more equitable means of assessing low proficiency hearing and deaf ELLs in the future.