Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

“Accessible Reading Assessment” and HTML

Cara Laitusis

Teresa King

Elizabeth Ayad

Markku Hakkinen

Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

Materials• 2 test forms (42 items each)• Reading passage followed by multiple

choice options.• Post-test survey

Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

Population• 49 boys, 44 girls• Grades 7-10• 10 different states

Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

Test Forms• Form A (Maximum Accessibility)• Form B (Business as Usual)

Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

Form A (Accessible)• Higher interest passages• Included “context” sentence• Panel of disability experts reviewed items and made

suggested revisions (simplified language)• Additional level of proofing for braille/large print forms• Changes to formatting• Two additional choices of test formats (audio, html)

Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

Sample by FormTest Form A

Test Form B

TotalBraille Large Print

Braille 18 -- 18

Large Print -- 26 26

Audio (MP3) 11 18 29

HTML 5 1 6

Audio+Braille 10 -- 10

Audio+Large Print -- 4 4

Total 44 49 93

Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

Mean Scores by Format

Format N Form A Form BMean SD Mean SD

Braille 18 35.22 9.61 34.83 8.08

Large Print 26 35.58 8.82 31.77 9.59

Audio 29 33.28 7.17 26.79 12.22

HTML 6 39.67 3.67 28.67 8.31

Audio+Braille 9 28.11 8.59 26.11 10.54

Audio+Large Print 4 29.50 9.68 22.75 7.50

Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

Student Comments on HTML• 5 students reported HTML was better

– “because it is easier and faster to navigate (performing the find command made things a lot simpler unlike the braille where I had to keep browsing through many pages and numbered paragraphs)”

– “because both reading the passage and answering the questions was a lot easier than the braille. I did not use the audio.”

– “I could finish more quickly and understand what I was reading.” – “some was read aloud and if there was a word you could not

pronounce it would pronounce it right. It was faster than I could read the braille.

• 1 student reported HTML was worse – “I couldn’t understand it as well”

Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

HTML Version • Followed Web Content Accessibility

Guidelines (WCAG) see http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/

Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

Limitations

• Small sample sizes• Confounding of other accessibility

elements with file format