320 ESSENTIALS OF KTEA™-3 AND WIAT®-III ASSESSMENT

LIMITATIONS OF THE WIAT-III

Floor and Ceiling

Table 5.5 shows the highest possible subtest scores for the oldest school-age and adult examinees and for examinees in Spring of grade 12. Although most subtests have a ceiling that is at least 2 SD above the mean, at grade 12, the ceilings for Word Reading, Oral Reading Accuracy (one component of the Oral Reading Fluency subtest, which has a ceiling of 160), the three Math Fluency subtests, Sentence Combining and Sentence Building (the two components of Sentence Composition, which has a ceiling of 160), and Expressive Vocabulary (a component of Oral Expression, which has a

Table 5.5 Ceiling for Students Ages 21:0–25:11 and 36:0–50:11 and Grade 12: Highest Possible Subtest Score

From Tables B.1 and C.1 of the WIAT-III Technical Manual (Pearson, 2010). The minimum standard score on all subtests is 40.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE KTEA™-3 AND WIAT®-III 321

ceiling of 160) range from 116 to 128. Examiners should check for similar ceiling e ects with any test instrument we use. For example, if a 12th-grader scores 160 for Reading Comprehension and only 122 for Word Reading on the WIAT-III, we do not know if the student’s word reading is really weaker than the student’s comprehension since the student passed every item on both subtests.

Similarly, there is insu cient floor on some subtests for students of ages 6:0 and younger as shown in Table 5.6. For students of ages 6:0 to 6:3, raw scores of 0 correspond to standard scores ranging from 88 to 40 (88 for Sentence Building and 90 for Sentence Combining, which are components of Sentence Construction, which has a floor of 40). For First Grade Winter Norms raw scores of 0 correspond to standard

Table 5.6 WIAT-III Floor for Students age 4:0–6:0 and Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten, and Grade 1: Lowest Possible Subtest Score

aWinter grade norms are reported here.

From Tables B.1 and C.1 of the WIAT-III Technical Manual (Pearson, 2010). The minimum standard score on all subtests is 40.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE KTEA™-3 AND WIAT®-III 323

are passed. However, because items 8 and 9 are for the same passage, is the examiner really supposed to employ the reverse rule after item 8? If so, do you replay the story again (the record form says “Do not repeat CD tracks”), ask the question associated with item 9 without the child hearing the story again, or administer item 9 even if item 8 is scored as a 0? If this is the answer, this may in fact cause more confusion with scoring. What if item 9 is passed, but during the reverse rule administration the child receives four consecutive scores of 0 below item 9? Would the score on item 9 count or not count?

For eight subtests, the discontinuation rule on the record form notes that the examiner is to “Discontinue after 4 consecutive scores of 0.” Although technically correct, this applies only to discontinuing when the examiner is moving forward toward establish a ceiling. However, if an examiner has had to employ the Reverse Rule and administer items in reverse in order to establish a basal, it is quite possible that an examinee could have four consecutive failures while being administered the items in reverse order. In such a case, the examiner should not discontinue after four consecutive errors since these errors occurred while moving in a reverse order in an attempt to establish a basal.

Item Scoring

Several subtest items appear to have more 111111111correct answers than are listed in the record form or Examiner’s Manual. Clarification of certain responses from the test authors will be helpful.

Reading Comprehension

The Reading Comprehension scoring rules should, we think, provide more guidance on querying. Acceptable answers still, as on the WIAT-II, place a premium on the examinee guessing what the question really is asking or what the passage in meant to imply, so there are many possible answers that suggest good understanding but receive no credit and apparently warrant no query. Several questions appear to have more correct answers than are listed in the record form. Examples are listed below:

Item #38 asks that the examinee give the word that “best describes Gobbledeeglue.” Several 2-point responses are allowed (no 1-point responses are provided) and answers such as “homemade” or “rolled” are not scored or queried.

Item #54 requires the examinee to give three dangers encountered by the family on their journey. Unfortunately, “getting lost” is not listed as an acceptable answer despite the fact that the story features an Indian guide who helps them survive and guides them to the destination. Item #73 requires the examinee to explain what caused whales to begin to make a recovery, and two specific answers are necessary to obtain maximum points. Listed as a possible 1-point response is “Placed on endangered species list.” This specific response requires a query by the examiner of “Tell me more.” There doesn’t appear to be any clear reason why this acceptable 1-point

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE KTEA™-3 AND WIAT®-III 325

pencil provided may help alleviate the problem, but there do not appear to be any such cues. Before you start the subtest, you do include the instruction, “You may use this paper and pencil at any time to help work a problem” but there is no indication that this reminder can be given to a student who might be struggling with the problems.

Pseudoword Decoding

One word, diminecial, has two correct pronunciations listed on the record form. Is there actually a third: die-min- e-shel?

Numerical Operations

There appears to be a potential scoring problem with Item 2: Item 1 asks a child to count a number of balls and then tell how many there are. Item 2 asks the child to “write the number of the balls you counted” into a box on the record form. How does one score it if the child miscounts the number of balls (e.g., says 4 instead of 5), thus getting

Item 1 wrong, but then, for item 2, correctly111111111 writes in the box “4”? Although the child has done exactly what the directions ask—“write the number of the balls you counted”—the answer key gives 5 as the only correct answer.

Don’t Forget

.....................................................................................................................

Scoring Numerical Operations Items

As explained in Chapter 3 of this book, the following items tend to raise questions for examiners about how the scoring rules were determined. Additional explanation is provided here.

Item 1: Asks the examinee to count the number of balls and tell how many there are, then Item 2 asks the examinee to write the number of balls counted. If the examinee miscounted the number of balls for Item 1 (e.g., says 4 instead of 5), which would be scored 0, and then writes that number for Item 2 (writes “4”), Item 2 is also scored 0. Why is the response for Item 2 incorrect even though the examinee followed the directions correctly? Numerical Operations is primarily a test of written math computation, so writing the correct answer is required on Item 2; however, these early items were designed to provide additional information about how the examinee arrived at their answer by asking the examinee to provide an oral response first.

(continued)