Project Activities
The researchers will conduct three studies across four years. In Study 1 they will evaluate the DAAP’s psychometric properties and test the validity—both cross-sectionally and longitudinally—in typically developing preschool and kindergarten children. In Study 2 researchers will examine measurement equivalence and concurrent validity of the DAAP in children with Speech-South Impairment (SSI) and Study 3 will look at these same things for children with Intellectual Disability (ID). Three forms of the test will be generated so the DAAP can be administered repeatedly over time. The final computerized DAAP will be a measure of alphabetic principle and its subcomponents that can be used with all children and facilitate research across different populations.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The research will take place in urban and suburban school districts in Florida and urban, suburban, and rural schools in Kansas.
Sample
The participants will include 400 preschoolers and 100 kindergarten children in studies 1 and 2. Study 1 will include typically developing (TD) children, Study 2 will include children with speech impairments (but with IQs in the normal range), and Study 3 will include 100 children with mild intellectual disabilities (ID).
Assessment
The DAAP is a computerized assessment that eliminates spoken responses and minimizes working memory load by minimizing spoken instructions. Children listen to spoken words, select corresponding letters via a touch screen, and receive feedback. The DAAP is dynamic; it offers multiple opportunities to demonstrate levels of skill mastery. If children do not initially demonstrate mastery of the alphabetic principle, DAAP presents prompted trials. If successful on the prompted trials, there is an opportunity to demonstrate learning via a retest of the spoken-word-to-print relations without prompts. Performance on the prompted trials is informative in and of itself—high accuracy demonstrates letter discrimination. The DAAP’s assessment of these lower-level skills across four subtests (onsets, rimes, codas, and vowels) avoids the floor effects that characterize performance on other related assessments.
Research design and methods
The researchers will develop 18 new items for each of the four subtests of the DAAP, and each child will be administered only 6 items per subtest through a linking design. The order of the DAAP trials within each of its four subtests will be randomly assigned across participants; the order for the presentation of subtests will be counterbalanced using a Latin Square design in each study. The DAAP and other measures will be administered to TD children in the (longitudinal) Study 1, to children with SSI in Study 2, and children with ID in Study 3.
Control condition
There is no control condition.
Key measures
To assess validity of the DAAP, researchers will use the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–4th edition, two subtests of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (Sound Matching and Blending Words), DIBELS first-sound fluency subtest, subtests from the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test III (Letter Identification, Word Attach, Word Identification, and Letter Naming), and timed and untimed measures of letter naming. Data will also be collected on costs associated with the use of the DAAP.
Data analytic strategy
The researchers will use diagnostic classification models to examine the psychometric properties of the DAAP in each sample, including dimensionality, reliability, and equivalence across parallel forms. These models directly provide probabilities of skill mastery. The researchers will use the ingredients method to determine costs and assign total expenditure values for training of examiners, the testing process, and summarizing results; costs will reflect national markets.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
Products: The goal of this project is to develop and validate the Dynamic Assessment of the Alphabetic Principle (DAAP), a new computerized assessment. The research team will also publish peer-reviewed articles in research and practitioner journals.
Supplemental information
Co-Principal Investigator: Hoffman, Lesa
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
