Developing a Morphological Awareness Test and Determining its Psychometric Properties for Persian- Speaking Students

Abstract

Introduction: Morphological awareness (MA) refers to the ability of conscious manipulation of morphemes (minimal meaningful units of language). There is no test for assessing MA in Persian. Therefore, this study aims to develop a morphological awareness test (MAT) and determine its psychometric properties in elementary school students. Materials and Methods: This methodological research study was performed in 2 phases. The first phase of the current study involved studying articles to extract Persian morphemes for designing a MAT. A draft of MAT was developed. In the second phase, to determine content validity, the MAT was given to 7 experts. The content validity ratio and content validity  index (CVI) were calculated. Intra-class  correlation  and Cronbach  alpha were calculated  for determining test-retest reliability and internal consistency, respectively. To determine discriminant validity, 20 dyslexic students were compared with 31 normal readers using the Mann-Whitney U test. Results: CVI was reported 0.94. Test-retest reliability results showed that there were statistically significant differences (P<0.005) between two times in 7 subtests out of 10. Internal consistency was reported as 0.70. The results of discriminant validity showed that there was a statistically significant difference between normal and dyslexia groups in all MA subtests (P<0.005). Conclusion: The amount of CVI showed that the test can examine MAskills. The inconsistency between test-retest results proved the influence of experience. The internal consistency of the test was acceptable. The appropriate discriminant validity results showed that the test can distinguish between normal and dyslexic groups. Therefore, the Persian MAT is a valid and reliable tool for the assessment of MA skills.