Psychology in the Schools Volume 23, January 1986

RELIABILITY OF THE BOEHM TEST OF BASIC CONCEPTS FOR HISPANIC AND NONHISPANIC KINDERGARTEN PUPILS

STEPHEN POWERS MARK H. ROSSMAN

Tucson U n ~ e d School District, Arizona Arizona State University

PEGGY DOUGLAS

University of Arizona

The internal consistency reliability of the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts (BTBC) was examined for 40 Hispanic and 40 nonHispanic kindergarten pupils in the Southwest. Subscale and total scale reliabilities appeared to be comparable. This evidence sup- ported the reliability of the BTBC for Hispanic and nonHispanic kindergarten pupils.

The identification of basic concepts necessary for success in school has been a con- cern of teachers and administrators. Researchers have reported that pupils who start out behind in their academic achievement tend to stay behind. Indeed, lower-achieving students seem to fall farther behind as they progress through school (Boehm, 1971). Remedial education programs often have sought to measure those basic concepts necessary for success in school either for purposes of program evaluation or for pupil selection.

The Boehm Test of Basic Concepts (BTBC) (Boehm, 1971) has been used widely as a screening test and as a guide for teaching. Unfortunately, the percentage of minority groups participating in the standardization sample was not reported by Boehm, although norms were reported by city, grade, and socioeconomic status. The concern of the public for fair assessment of minority groups has led to an interest in the performance of minor- ity students on tests and an interest in the psychometric properties of those tests for minority groups. The purpose of this study was to examine the internal consistency reliability estimates of the BTBC for Hispanic and nonHispanic kindergarten pupils.

METHOD

Subjects The present study group consisted of 40 Hispanic pupils (22 boys and 18 girls) and

40 nonHispanic pupils (22 boys and 18 girls) enrolled in an ECIA Chapter 1 remedial education kindergarten program in a large, urban school district in the Southwest. The nonHispanic group comprised 1 Native American, 21 blacks, 17 Caucasians, and 1 Asian. The mean age of the children was 5.1 years. Students generally could be characterized as lower socioeconomic status. Instrument

The BTBC, Form A (Boehm, 1971) was designed to measure the knowledge of 50 basic concepts of children in Grades K-2. The concepts were purported to be related to successful achievement in the early years of school. According to Boehm, these 50 concepts may be grouped into four subscales of Space (23 items), Quantity (18 items), Time (4 items), and Miscellaneous (5 items). The BTBC Manual reported a split-half

Requests for reprints should be sent to Peggy Douglas, College of Education, University of Arizona, Tucson, A 2 85721.

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Boehm Test 35

reliability coefficient for low socioeconomic status kindergarten pupils of .86 and a mean total score of 28.4.

Procedure The BTBC was administered by classroom teachers to small groups of a total of

168 Chapter 1 kindergarten pupils in October of 1984. A total of 40 Hispanic and 40 nonHispanic pupils were matched on the basis of their total BTBC scores. The Kuder- Richardson formula 20 (KR20) internal consistency reliability estimates were calculated for each group and for combined groups.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The mean total BTBC score of the Hispanic (M=31.05) and the nonHispanic

( M = 30.55) pupils were compared and found to be nonsignificantly different ( t = .23). The reliability estimates of the BTBC for combined groups were Space .86, Quantity .73, Time .79, Miscellaneous .60, and total test .91. The KR20 reliability estimates of the Hispanic and nonHispanic pupils were compared employing Feldt’s (1969) F-test of the equality of two reliability estimates. Because there were five comparisons, the significance level of each pairwise comparison was set at .01 (i.e. .05/5) in order to main- tain the experimentwise error rate at the .05 alpha level. The results of the comparisons are presented in Table 1.

Table 1 Kuder-Richardson Reliability Estimates for Hispanic and NonHispanic Kindergarten Pupils on the BTBC

Reliabilities

Scale Hispanic NonHispanic F

Space .86 .87 1.08

Quantity .70 .I6 1.25

Time .74 .83 1.53

Miscellaneous .46 .70 1.80

Total .90 .92 1.25

Note. All F-tests were nonsignificant at the .01 level.

None of the comparisons of the reliability estimates between Hispanic and nonHispanic pupils was significant at the experimentwise .05 level. It should be noted that there was a considerable discrepancy between the reliabilities of the Hispanic pupils (.46) and the nonHispanic pupils (.70) on the Miscellaneous subscale. The reliabilities of the total scores of the Hispanic and nonHispanic groups appeared to be comparable. They also appeared to be similar to the reliability reported by Boehm (1971) for low socioeconomic kindergarten pupils.

These results support the contention that the BTBC has adequate reliability for Hispanic and nonHispanic kindergarten children when the total scale is being interpreted. If researchers are employing the BTBC subscales, they should be cautious about the

36 Boehm Test

Miscellaneous subscale. These results provide supportive evidence of an important psychometric property of the BTBC for a group of pupils not mentioned in the Boehm norms.

REFERENCES BOEHM, A. (1971). FELDT, L. S. (1969). A test of the hypothesis that Cronbach’s alpha or Kuder-Richardson coefficient twenty

NOLL, V. H. (1970). Review of the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts. Journal of Educational Measurement,

Boehm Test of Basic Concepts Manual. New York: Psychological Corporation.

is the same for two tests. Psychometrika, 34, 363-373.

7, 139-140.