Monster, P.I.: Validation Evidence for an Assessment of Adolescent Language That Assesses Vocabulary Knowledge, Morphological Knowledge, and Syntactical Awareness

Abstract

Assessment of language skills for upper elementary and middle schoolers is important due to the strong link between language and reading comprehension. Yet, currently few practical, reliable, valid, and instructionally informative assessments of language exist. This study provides validation evidence for Monster, P.I., which is a gamified, standardized, computer-adaptive assessment (CAT) of language for fifth to eighth grade students. Creating Monster, P.I. involved an assessment of the dimensionality of morphology and vocabulary and an assessment of syntax. Results using multiple-group item response theory (IRT) with 3,214 fifth through eighth graders indicated morphology and vocabulary were best assessed via bifactor models and syntax unidimensionally. Therefore, Monster, P.I. provides scores on three component areas of language (multidimensional morphology and vocabulary and unidimensional syntax) with the goal of informing instruction. Validity results also suggest that Monster, P.I. scores show moderate correlations with each other and with standardized reading vocabulary and reading comprehension assessments. Furthermore, hierarchical regression results suggest an important link between Monster, P.I. and standardized reading comprehension, explaining between 56% and 75% of the variance. Such results indicate that Monster, P.I. can provide meaningful understandings of language performance which can guide instruction that can impact reading comprehension performance.

Effectiveness of a Classroom‐Implemented, App‐Based Morphology Program for Language‐Minority Students: Examining Latent Language‐Literacy Profiles and Contextual Factors as Moderators

“…Specifically, morpho-semantic knowledge may constitute the largest challenge for LM students. This suggestion is in line with recent research indicating that morphological knowledge is best understood as a multidimensional construct, and that the use of semantic information in morphemes may be particularly problematic for students with limited reading vocabulary (Goodwin et al, 2017(Goodwin et al, , 2021Goodwin, Petscher, Tock, McFadden, et al, 2020).…”

Multidimensional morphological assessment for middle school students

“…We tested task, skill‐level and trait‐level models. For skill and trait levels, we tested unidimensional, correlated and bifactor models (see Goodwin & Petscher, 2019; Goodwin et al, in press , for additional detail). Data across the multiple cohorts were pooled for data analysis (Lesko et al, 2018).…”

“…Across the 3 years of the study, we worked in an urban district in the Southeastern United States (Goodwin et al, 2020, in press). To answer our first question regarding dimensionality, we used a sample of 3,214 fifth through eighth graders ( N = 1,026 fifth graders, 742 sixth graders, 715 seventh graders and 731 eighth graders) learning in the classrooms of 15, 38 and 37 teachers in Years 1, 2 and 3, respectively.…”

“…Hence, we administered Year 1 questions on iPads as part of a traditional‐testing format (i.e., items presented on screens but not within a game), but responses from students and teachers suggested that test‐fatigue was occurring (see Supporting Information). Hence, we revisited ways to increase engagement and ultimately gamified the assessment, placing traditional questions within a larger storyline as part of Monster, PI (see Goodwin et al, in press, for technical information on full system assessing vocabulary, syntax and morphological knowledge). We focus on the morphological knowledge assessment in this paper.…”

Developing morphological knowledge with online corpora in an ESL vocabulary classroom

“…It involves inflection and derivation of morphemes that are closely related to the process of learners' lexical acquisition. As some researchers argue, information about the meaning, pronunciation, and part of speech of a word is derived from its morphological knowledge (Nagy et al, 1993 ; Stoffelsma et al, 2020 ; Goodwin et al, 2022 ). In particular, morphological knowledge is a fundamental dimension for discovering what is in a word, through which learners deduce the word forms and access the morphemes, i.e., prefixes, roots, and suffixes, and these are essential for learners to develop the generic knowledge of vocabulary (Schreuder and Baayen, 1995 ).…”