Bowles Ryan P, Skibbe Lori E, Justice Laura M
Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
J Appl Meas. 2011;12(4):387-98.
Letter name knowledge (LNK) is a key predictor of later reading ability and has been emphasized strongly in recent educational policy. Studies of LNK have implicitly treated it as a unidimensional construct with all letters equally relevant to its measurement. However, some empirical research suggests that contextual factors can affect the measurement of LNK. In this study, we analyze responses from 909 children on measures of LNK using the Rasch model and its extensions, and consider two contextual factors: the format of assessment and the own-name advantage, which states that children are more likely to know letters in their own first names. Results indicate that both contextual factors have important impacts on measurement and that LNK does not meet the requirements of Rasch measurement even when accounting for the contextual factors. These findings introduce philosophical concerns for measurement of constrained skills which have limited content for assessment.
字母名称知识（LNK）是后期阅读能力的关键预测指标，并且在近期的教育政策中得到了强烈强调。对LNK的研究一直将其隐含地视为一个单维结构，所有字母对其测量的相关性相同。然而，一些实证研究表明，情境因素会影响LNK的测量。在本研究中，我们使用拉施模型及其扩展方法分析了909名儿童在LNK测量指标上的回答，并考虑了两个情境因素：评估形式和名字优势，即儿童更有可能认识自己名字中的字母。结果表明，这两个情境因素对测量都有重要影响，并且即使考虑了情境因素，LNK也不符合拉施测量的要求。这些发现引发了对受限技能测量的哲学思考，这些技能的评估内容有限。
