Analysis

The Test of Written Language Difficulties was developed by Berninger, Mizokawa, and Bragg in 1991 to examine the challenges faced by primary school students in the production and processing of written language.

Purpose

The test includes three parts:
Written Expression, where students are asked to write a text based on four images.
Sentence Reconstruction, where students must arrange 12 words in the correct order to form complete sentences.
Text Reconstruction, where students must sequence the parts of a paragraph correctly to create a coherent text.

Scoring

Each task is scored separately:
In written expression, spelling accuracy and text organization are assessed.
In sentence reconstruction, students are scored based on the correct sequence of words, with a maximum score of 12.
In text reconstruction, each sentence’s correct placement is scored with 1 point for the correct position and 0 for an incorrect one.

Statistical Analysis

The test was administered to 1,631 students from the last four grades of general education schools where Greek is the native language. Specifically, 382 students were in 3rd grade, 424 in 4th grade, 425 in 5th grade, and 400 in 6th grade.

Validity and Reliability

The validity of the test ranged from r = 0.41 to r = 0.71. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient ranged from 0.68 to 0.85, while the test-retest reliability coefficient ranged from 0.43 to 0.88.

References

Berninger, V. W., Mizokawa, D. T., & Bragg, R. (1991). Theory-based diagnosis and remediation of writing disabilities. Journal of School Psychology, 29, 57–79.
Hayes, J. R. (1996). A new framework for understanding cognition and affect in writing. In C. M. Levy & S. Ransdell (Eds.), The science of writing: Theories, methods, individual differences, and applications (pp. 1–27). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.