South African Journal of Education, Volume 41, Number 1, February 2021
9
Table 16 Validity coefficients by assuming age criteria of SOBAT®-II
Reading rate
Reading accuracy
Reading comprehension
Total score
Form A
0.40
0.49
0.40
0.58
Form B
0.42
0.49
0.42
0.59
Discussion
Within the scope of this study, a standardised oral
reading test was developed to evaluate the
development of reading and comprehension skills
of children with SLD aged 7 to 14 years. This type
of standardised tests may be helpful to make
definition and understanding of SLD clearer (Nel &
Grosser, 2016). First of all,
the developed test can
be used by teachers to determine reading fluency
and reading comprehension, which are among basic
reading skills of all 7 to 14 years old children with
or without SLD (Nel & Grosser, 2016; Pierangelo
& Giuliani, 2006; Zimmerman & Smit, 2014). In
this way, teachers will be able to determine the
individual needs of the students who will be
educated in their classrooms to improve their basic
reading skills and will be able to make the
necessary adaptations for individualised education
considering these needs while studying. Thus,
teachers of students with SLD may gain a positive
attitude towards educating those students (Donohue
& Bornman, 2014). In addition to determining the
level of reading, teachers will be able to measure
how much students achieve the objectives of basic
reading skills during
the year by performing this
test periodically. In addition, teachers will be able
to identify students with reading difficulties by
using the developed test and applying different
teaching methods and strategies with these
students. Teachers will be able to take the
necessary steps regarding students who they think
might need special education.
Researchers from various countries may
model the development process of SOBAT®-II and
form their standardised tests. Moreover, national
and international researchers
may use the findings
of this study for future research on Turkish and/or
test development. Furthermore, by the development
of objective assessment tools, such as SOBAT®-II,
countries can constitute more robust assessment
systems and thus devote their economic resources
to students who really are in need thereof.
The developed test could be widely used in
scientific studies to determine the effectiveness of
reading programmes and teaching methods and
strategies. In addition, researchers will be able to
develop different assistive reading programmes or
Turkish teaching methods and strategies and use
the results of this test to scientifically demonstrate
their effectiveness. Also, this developed test can be
widely used by psychologists and RAMs to
evaluate basic reading
skills in the medical or
educational diagnosis of children with SLD.
Therefore, SOBAT®-II could be applied as a
standardised form of assessing students’ reading
abilities/skills.
Special education teachers will be able to use
this test during the education of students who are
determined to be in need of special education and
have reading-comprehension problems. The results
of this test can be used to determine the reading
levels of students with special needs in terms of
basic reading skills and to select the assistive
reading programme or teaching methods and
strategies to be applied. Special education teachers
will be able to measure the success of their
education with this test.
Conclusion
As a result of this study,
the Oral Reading Skills
and Comprehension Test (SOBAT®), of which the
preliminary study was conducted between 2002 and
2012 (Erden & Çelik, 2019; Melekoğlu et al.,
2019), was expanded to include children between
the ages of 7 and 14, and the parallel form of the
test, A and B, was developed. Within this study, a
standardised oral reading test was developed in
which the basic reading skills of children between
the ages of 7 and 14 can be easily determined in
reading fluency and reading comprehension skills.
This test can be widely used by both educators and
relevant experts for different purposes. With
SOBAT®-II, scanning and diagnostic dimensions
of reading difficulties, and planning and monitoring
of reading interventions can be performed
systematically and with a standardised reading test.
The findings obtained during the development
of SOBAT®-II indicate that most parents apply to
child mental health or child neurology specialists as
a result of attention deficits problems of their
children. Although the
majority of students have
their own study environments, they mostly read one
to 15 pages of books per day. Furthermore, students
prefer spending time for TV or computer and less
time for outside play or exercise, and this sedentary
lifestyle could negatively influence students’
reading performance even more.
The results of the test administrations show
that the longer the students read in the test, the
more errors they made, which indicates that the
level of difficulty in the test gradually increases. In
addition, Cronbach aplha and parallel form
reliability results of SOBAT®-II show that the test
has high reliability for administration.
Some limitations were encountered during
this study. Firstly, the willingness to participate in
the study was very low. Generally, school
administrators
and
teachers
questioned
the
contribution that this
study could make and often
did not want to participate. It was observed that
administrators and teachers who had experience of
previous
research/projects
and/or
graduate
10
Melekoğlu, Erden, Çakıroğlu
education were more willing to participate in the
study.
Another limitation was the lack of a suitable
environment in schools to administer the tests.
There were problems in finding places in schools
where one-on-one study could be performed by the
research team for a certain period. In some schools,
test
administrations
were
carried
out
in
principals’/assistant principals’ rooms, guidance
and
counseling
teacher
rooms,
libraries,
laboratories, warehouses, and teacher rooms.
Another limitation in the research was that
middle school students, especially 7th and 8th
grade students were quite reluctant to participate in
the project. By indicating the high school entrance
exam and the preparation process for this exam, the
students did not want to participate and some
schools did not volunteer to participate in the study.
For similar reasons, the
parents also did not allow
students to participate.
In future studies, expanding the number and
diversity of the sample by including students from
different provinces may be beneficial for
standardisation of the test. In addition, adding
motivation resources to increase the voluntary
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