APPLIED MEASUREMENT IN EDUCATION, 23: 168–186, 2010
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0895-7347 print / 1532-4818 online
DOI: 10.1080/08957341003673823
HAME 0895-7347 1532-4818 Applied Measurement in Education, Vol. 23, No. 2, February 2010: pp. 0–0 Applied Measurement in Education
Accessibility of Segmented Reading
Comprehension Passages for Students
with Disabilities
Accessibility of Segmented Reading Comprehension abedi et al.
Jamal Abedi
University of California, Davis
Jenny C. Kao and Seth Leon
UCLA/CRESST
1
Ann M. Mastergeorge and Lisa Sullivan
University of California, Davis
Joan Herman
UCLA/CRESST
Rita Pope
University of California, Davis
This study explores factors that affect the accessibility of reading comprehension
assessments for students with disabilities in grade 8 public school classrooms. The
study consisted of assessing students using reading comprehension passages that
were broken down into shorter “segments” or “chunks” in order to assess the validity
and effectiveness of segmenting and the reliability of assessment in segmenting.
The results of the segmenting study indicated that: (1) segmenting did not affect
reading performance of students without disabilities; suggesting that it does not
compromise the validity of reading assessment; (2) segmenting did not affect reading
performance of students with disabilities; and (3) the segmented version had a
higher reliability for students with disabilities without affecting the reliability for
students without disabilities.
1
CRESST is the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing.
Correspondence should be addressed to Jamal Abedi, School of Education, University of California,
Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616. E-mail: jabedi@ucdavis.edu