Scale of Perception and Analysis of Reading Fluency - SOLAR: usability and consistency

Abstract

Objective: to analyze the consistency of responses of evaluators and to verify the usability of the perception and analysis of SOLAR (Science of Language and Reading) Methods: a non-experimental descriptive cross-sectional study. Elementary school teachers and undergraduate students of speech therapy and pedagogy participated as the judges. The judges used the SOLAR Scale as an instrument to analyze the reading fluency of twenty audios recorded by elementary school students. Usability comparisons were performed using the Kruskal Wallis test and two-by-two comparisons using the Mann Whitney test. To analyze the consistency of the responses between the judges, the calculation of the interclass correlation coefficient was used. Results: the analysis of the reliability of the answers showed an excellent intraclass correlation coefficient for all the skills of the Scale. As for the usability of the Scale, more than 80% of the participants positively evaluated the assessment. This was verified through the usability questionnaires which confirmed that it was easy to use, with clear guidelines and that users felt comfortable and confident using it. Conclusion: SOLAR obtained good results in reliability and consistency with excellent agreement between the evaluators. These results indicated satisfactory reliability of the SOLAR items and favorable qualitative ratings from users.