PSYCHOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE ELEMENTARY EXPERIENCE SCALE AND ITS PREDICTABILITY OF ELEMENTARY LITERACY SCORES

Abstract

The development of an Elementary Experiences Scale (EES) was necessary to measure parents' perception of their own school experiences since limited validated tools were available for this type of informative evaluation. It was hypothesized that parents' perception of schools, negative or positive, could have a negative or positive effect on their students' progress in school. A pilot study using the EES found it to predict the variance in student literacy scores. In order to further validate the EES, parents of elementary students in an entire district including students in grades kindergarten through fourth grade were offered the opportunity to participate in a survey about their personal school experiences. The 461 parents who completed the EES had their responses totaled and compared to their students' literacy scores. Socioeconomic status (SES) of the parents was also taken into consideration. Results found that the EES had a strong reliability index (alpha = .95), but did not significantly predict student reading achievement on the literacy scores. The EES and SES combined predicted kindergarten letter naming fluency scores and letter sound fluency. The EES and SES levels combined also predicted fourth grade MAZE assessment scores. ThinkLink and TCAP literacy scores were not significantly predicted. When controlling for reported levels of SES alone, SES did significantly predict the variance in student literacy scores for all grade levels combined on AIMSweb in fluency measures (CBMs) and comprehension measures (MAZE assessments). In fact, the higher the SES, the more the variance in the students' literacy scores was able to be predicted. The EES was analyzed with both classical test theory and item response theory and found to have a strong one factor solution in each analysis. These findings suggest validation of the scale's use in evaluating parents' elementary school experiences. Further research on the influence of the EES in predicting students' early reading progression should be conducted. This dissertation also highlighted the importance of promoting family literacy practices in the schools in order to help promote students' literacy success through collaboration between schools and families.