Technical Manual - Renaissance Learning

ValidityRelationship of STAR Early Literacy Scores to Other TestsFigure 5:STAR Early Literacy Scaled Scores as a Function of Age; Mean Scaled Scoresfor 11 Age Groups in the Validation StudyRelationship of STAR Early Literacy Scores to Other TestsBesides showing the appropriate relationships with age, grade level, and skillsratings by teachers, if STAR Early Literacy is indeed measuring literacy skills, itsscores should correlate highly with measures of reading, literacy, and readiness.To evaluate this, standardized reading and other test scores were collected forsome of the students participating in the Calibration Study and in the ValidationStudy. In the Calibration Study, STAR Reading 2.1, a computer-adaptive readingtest, was administered specifically for this purpose. In the Validation Study, scoresrecorded on a variety of standardized reading tests were entered by teachers,using a special worksheet provided for this purpose. Subsequent to the 2001publication of STAR Early Literacy, additional data have been collected that showthe relationship of STAR Early Literacy scores to scores on other tests. Below,results from the Calibration Study are presented first, followed by results from theValidation Study, and then from recent studies.Calibration Study ResultsDuring the Calibration Study, over 3,000 students in grades 1 through 3 took STARReading 2.1 in addition to the STAR Early Literacy tests. Figure 6 shows a plot ofSTAR Early Literacy Enterprise Rasch ability scores against STAR Reading 2.1Rasch ability scores.STAR Early LiteracyTechnical Manual58