Abstract
This article introduces a standardized test to assess phonemic awareness following written input among prospective elementary school teachers. The items measuring phonological awareness at the phoneme level were constructed based on the importance of phonemic awareness for the acquisition of reading and writing. They have different item formats (multiple choice, open-ended answer format) at ...
Abstract
This article introduces a standardized test to assess phonemic awareness following written input among prospective elementary school teachers. The items measuring phonological awareness at the phoneme level were constructed based on the importance of phonemic awareness for the acquisition of reading and writing. They have different item formats (multiple choice, open-ended answer format) at different levels of operation (e.g., segmentation, manipulation). Because standardized tests to assess skills in this field are still missing in the German-speaking countries, the available study aimed at closing this gap. The sample comprised 271 student teachers from five teacher-education universities in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg and one university in Bavaria, Germany. 14 items were excluded within a two-parametric logistic (2PL) item-response theory model because of low item-discrimination parameters (alpha < 0.80). For the remaining 22 items, we estimated a one-parametric model that showed acceptable infit statistics (weighted mean square, WMNSQ, and t-statistics: 0.82 <= WMNSQ <= 1.08, -1.9 <= t <= 1.2) as well as a sufficient person separation reliability of.80. The psychometric values of the item selection indicate that the instrument developed is suitable for displaying performance differences of prospective elementary school teachers with a sufficient accuracy.
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