Form Effects on DIBELS Next Oral Reading Fluency Progress- Monitoring Passages

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe passage effects on Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills-Next Edition Oral Reading Fluency (DIBELS Next ORF) progress-monitoring measures for Grades 1 through 6. Approximately 572 students per grade (total N with at least one data point = 3,092) read all three DIBELS Next winter benchmark passages in the prescribed order, and within 2 weeks read four additional progress-monitoring passages in a randomly assigned and counterbalanced order. All 20 progress-monitoring passages were read by students in Grades 1 through 4; 16 passages were read in Grade 5 and 12 passages were read in Grade 6. Results focus on the persistence of form effects in spite of a priori criteria used in passage development. The authors describe the utility of three types of equating methods (i.e., mean, linear, and equipercentile equating) in ameliorating these effects. Their conclusions focus on preferred equating methods with small samples, the impact of form effects on progress-monitoring decision making, and recommendations for future use of ORF passages for progress monitoring.

Evaluating Passage and Order Effects of Oral Reading Fluency Passages in Second Grade: A Partial Replication

“…In this study, we replicated previous findings that order effects in addition to passage effects do impact raw scores (Cummings et al, 2013;Francis et al, 2008). In contrast to Final model corresponds to model in Figure 1.…”

“…Stoolmiller et al (2013) are unable to shed light on the area of order effects; although similar to other studies, it contributes to the idea that equating methods are needed because raw scores vary as a result of passage difficulty. Cummings et al (2013) examined the passage equivalency of DIBELS 7th Edition, also referred to as DIBELS Next, three winter benchmarks and four progress-monitoring passages with 144 second graders. Their primary aim was to attempt different approaches to equating for both effectiveness and efficiency somewhat similar to Albano and Rodriguez (2012).…”

“…In regard to order effects, we have conflicting and limited information. In one study, order effects were small and inconsistent, nonsignificant before equating, and significant after equating (Francis et al, 2008); in another study, order effects are small and statistically significant and varied by student skill (Cummings et al, 2013). The research designs of the reviewed studies varied and may influence our ability to isolate the impact and magnitude of passage and order effects.…”

Growth in Oral Reading Fluency in a Semitransparent Orthography: Concurrent and Predictive Relations With Reading Proficiency in Norwegian, Grades 2–5

“…The invariance results support previous research and show the difficulty of creating parallel reading passages (e.g., Cummings, Park, & Bauer Schaper, ). Although the grade‐level passages are developed to be equal in difficulty, the reason why some passages stood out empirically might be that different passages mirror students' interests and familiarity because of content variation in the passages and the types of text structures used (e.g., narrative, expository).…”

New metrics, measures, and uses for fluency data: an introduction to a special issue on the assessment of reading fluency

“…For example, only a handful of studies have examined R-CBMs from the perspective of Generalizability theory (Hintze & Pelle Petitte, 2001;Hintze, Owen, Shapiro, & Daly, 2000;Poncy, Skinner, & Axtell, 2005). These studies have added confidence that individual R-CBMs are reliable across individuals, forms (i.e., different passages), groups (as defined by special education status or grade level), and occasions when multiple sources of measurement error are considered simultaneously, but more work is needed in this area particularly in the domain of school-based assessments with multiple passage forms (e.g., Cummings, Park, & Schaper, 2012;Francis et al, 2008). With respect to IRT methods in particular, at the time of this publication only one study beyond the manuscript in the current issue has attempted to apply IRT to fluency-based R-CBMs (Zopluoglu, 2013).…”