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
Top Related