Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of the Roteiro de Avaliação da Consciência Fonológica, a phonological awareness test

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the evidence of construct validity of a phonological awareness instrument. Exploratory factor analysis was carried out on data collected from 510 elementary and middle school students in 2nd and 6th grades attending two different public schools in the city of São Paulo, Brazil; most were males with mean age of 8.4 years. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out on data collected from 427 students from other four Brazilian states in the same grades; most were females with mean age of 9.3 years. The instrument used was the Roteiro de Avaliação da Consciência Fonológica, a phonological awareness test. The exploratory factor analysis showed a three-factor solution. As for the confirmatory factor analysis, of the two models tested, the one that indicated better model fit indices was composed of three factors. The model found is adequate for the task carried out in this study. However, more studies should be carried out to further refine the instrument.

The dimensionality of phonological awareness among Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children: a longitudinal study

“…Considering other studies that investigated the factorial structure of different phonological awareness measures with Brazilian Portuguese speaking children (Godoy and Cogo-Moreira, 2015;Santos and Lima, 2017;Germano et al, 2017), the most comparable to ours is the study by Germano et al (2017). The study by Godoy and Cogo-Moreira (2015) and the study by Santos and Lima (2017) did not manipulate the linguistic unit involved in the phonological awareness tasks in their study (they only employed phonemic tasks) and investigated older children (from first to 6 th grade). Especially in Santos and Lima's study, the results are difficult to interpret because there is no manipulation of phonological unit (e.g., syllable X phoneme) or cognitive demand (e.g., analysis X synthesis).…”

“…Regarding studies conducted with Brazilian Portuguese speakers, to our knowledge, three studies investigated the factorial structure of different measures of phonological awareness: Godoy and Cogo-Moreira (2015); Santos and Lima (2017); and Germano, César, and Capellini (2017). The study by Godoy and Cogo-Moreira (2015) included three measures of phonemic awareness (phoneme segmentation, onset deletion in nonwords with a consonant-vowel-consonant [CVC] structure, and onset deletion in nonwords with a consonant-consonant-vowel [CCV] structure); this study was conducted with 176 Brazilian 1 st to 5 th graders.…”

“…However, the authors did not compare the three-factor model with a one-factor model to assess which model best fits the data. Santos and Lima (2017) aimed to investigate the evidence of construct validity of a phonological awareness instrument, the Roteiro de Avaliação da Consciência Fonológica (RACF). The RACF comprises three sections of items, each with five items to evaluate difficulties in detecting a phoneme at the beginning, middle, and end of words.…”

“…Considering the divergence among the results from studies on the dimensionality of phonological awareness conducted thus far in Brazil (Germano et al, 2017;Godoy and Cogo-Moreira, 2015;Santos and Lima, 2017), and internationally (Anthony et al, 2002(Anthony et al, , 2011Hatcher and Hulme, 1999;Papadopoulos et al, 2012;Runge and Watkins, 2006;Schatschneider et al, 1999;Vloedgraven and Verhoeven, 2009;Wagner et al, 1997;Wagner et al, 1994;Wolff and Gustafsson, 2015), we aim to investigate this issue. The present study included measures that differ in their cognitive demand (detection, blending, segmentation, and deletion) and the phonological unit (rhyme, syllable, and phoneme).…”

Papel do Vocabulário para as Habilidades de Compreensão Leitora

“…A tarefa tem evidência de validade preditiva demonstrada no estudo de Santos (1996), validade de critério, por ano escolar (Suehiro & Santos, 2011) e nível de leitura (Mota, Santos, Guimarães, & Conti, 2014). Outras propriedades psicométricas, como a validade de construto, também foram testadas com o RACF (Santos & Lima, 2017). Segundo Santos (1996), a análise de consistência interna da tarefa apresenta índices adequados, alfa de Cronbach (α) > 0,70.…”