Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Sub-Department

The Norman J. Arnold School of Public Health

First Advisor

Suzanne Adlof

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the validity of a web-based, self-rating checklist of vocabulary knowledge. One hundred fifty-nine participants took two norm-referenced assessments in addition to one of three conditions of a developed self-rating checklist. Each condition employed a different combination of follow-up questions (synonym generation to verify participants’ self-ratings) and feedback for student responses (whether or not synonyms are correct). Condition 1 did not provide any follow-up questions or feedback, Condition 2 included follow-up questions and feedback, and Condition 3 presented follow-up questions but no feedback. Results show that participants moderately overestimated vocabulary knowledge. Moderate-to-high statistically significant correlations (0.51 – 0.71) were observed between each condition of the assessment and norm-referenced assessments. Additionally, multiple regression analyses indicated that 31-67% of variance in norm-referenced assessments could be explained by scores on the self-rating checklist assessment, demonstrating concurrent validity with norm-referenced vocabulary tests. Results indicated few differences in the prediction of norm-referenced assessments between conditions differing in follow-up questions/feedback. However, participant responses to post-assessment surveys show that the presence or lack of feedback and follow-up questions had a slight effect on their perceptions of construct validity. These results demonstrate both construct and concurrent validity and suggest that a self-rating checklist can be a valid assessment of vocabulary.

Rights

© 2016, Sheida Abdi

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