Download - OWLS LANGUAGE SCALES

OWLS

Author: Elizabeth Carrow-WoolfolkPublication Date: 1995Ages: 3 to 21 years

ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE SCALES

Listening Comprehension and Oral Expression

Areas Tested

speaking listening

The OWLS Measures

Lexical

Syntactic

Syntactic construction

Supralinguistic

The Oral Expression also includes

Pragmatic Language

What is the purpose of using OWLS?

Learning disabilitiesLanguage disordersOther related difficulties

Identification

Intervention

Progress Monitoring

Research

Gathering dataComparative studies

Addressing potential academic difficulties

Record of growth

Listening Comprehension Scale

The Listening Comprehension Scale

111 items5 to 15 minutes

A spoken response is not required.

1 2

3 4

First error

Ceiling Item

Basal Item

Start Item

Basal

Ceiling

Items 1-51SUBTOTAL 41 (Maximum 51 points)

Scoring Sample

Oral Expression Scale

The Oral Expression Scale

96 items10 to 15 minutes

Here is Mary (point). Mary is a girl.Here is John (point). John is a _______ BOY

A spoken response is required for every item. Gestures are not acceptable responses

Sample – Oral Expression Scale Scoring (Age: 12 to 13 yrs old )In this picture, Aunt Lucy asks Mary what time her friend’s party begins . Mary calls her friend to find outWhat should Mary ask?

What time is your party? When will the party begin? What time does your party starts? What time is it? What time are you coming over? (a specific time)Response:

1 0

CORRECT RESPONSE

What time is your party? When will the party begin? What time does your party starts? What time is it? What time are you coming over? (a specific time)Response:

1 0

INCORRECT RESPONSE

Where do you live?

(Age: 12 to 13 yrs old )In this picture, Aunt Lucy asks Mary what time her friend’s party begins . Mary calls her friend to find outWhat should Mary ask?

Sample size: 1,985 individuals

Age Range: 3 to 21 years.

Demographics

Norming Sample

Norming Sample – Geographic Area

19

16

1711

12

137 482 5

3

10

21

1514

18

3130

6955

67

62656461

638279

8157

5953

51

52

54

5870

7677

747560

244626

232725

222829

4241

37

433840

3645 44

39

33

343532

48

5049

47

97

9899

103113

91929390

9596

94

101104

56

66

110

108109

107

848587

86

68

73

89

88

NORTH

CENTRAL

SOUTH

WEST

NORTHEAST

Geographic region

South 36.0%

North Central 25.1%

West 20.2%

Northeast 18.7%

South

WestNorth East

NorthCentral

RaceWhite 70.9%

Black 14.9%

Hispanic 10.1%

Other 4.1%

Maternal Education Level

High School Graduate 39.3%

1 to 3 Yrs of College or Technical School 25.2%

4 or More Yrs of College 19.7%

Grade 11 or less 15.8%Mother's education level was used to indicate socioeconomic status.

Norming Sample

BlackOther

White

Hispanic

Grade 11 or less

High School1-3 yrs college or Tech school

4 or more yrscollege

GenderFemales 50.7%

Males 49.3%;

FemalesMales

Reliability

Methods Used to test Reliability

Reliability ResultsSplit half method

Listening Comprehension--0.84Oral Expression—0.87Oral Composite—0.91

Test - RetestListening Comprehension: 0.73 to 0.80Oral Expression: 0.77 to 0.86Oral Composite: 0.81 to 0.89

InterraterOral Expression Scale: mean of four age groups: 0.95

Validity

Correlations

Criterion-Related Validity

TACL-R Total Score

0.78 (Oral Comp)

CELF-R Total Language

0.91 (Oral Comp)

0.88 (Language Comp)

PPVT-R:

0.75 (Oral Comp)

0.72 (Language Comp)

Correlations with measures of Cognitive Ability

VERBAL ABILITY

K-ABC Achievement score0.82 (Oral Comp)

WISC-III Verbal IQ0.74 (Oral Comp)0.77 (Language Comp)

K-BIT Vocabulary subtest0.76 (Oral & Language Comp)

NONVERBAL ABILITY

K-ABC Nonverbal score0.70 (Oral Comp)

WISC-III Performance IQ0.69 (Oral Comp)0.70 (Language Comp)

K-BIT Matrices subtest0.65 (Oral Comp)0.59 (Language Comp)

Validity – General Scores

GLOBAL SCORESK-ABC Mental Processing composite

0.76 (Oral Comp)

WISC-III Full Scale IQ0.73 (Oral Comp)0.76 (Language Comp)

K-BIT Composite0.75 (Oral Comp)0.72 (Language Comp)

Correlations with measures of Academic Achievement

K-TEA ComprehensiveReading Composite

0.60 (Oral Comp)0.74 (Language Comp)

Mathematics Composite 0.43 (Oral Comp)0.63 (Language Comp)

Battery Composite0.47 (Oral Comp)0.66 (Language Comp)

WRMT-RWord ID


Word Attack0.67 (Oral Comp)0.70 (Language Comp)

Word Comprehension 0.88 (Oral Comp)0.88 (Language Comp)

Passage Comprehension0.70 (Oral Comp)0.73 (Language Comp)

Total Reading0.82 (Oral Comp)0.83 (Language Comp)

PIAT-RGeneral Information


Total Reading0.80 (Oral Comp)0.81 (Language Comp)

Mathematics0.82 (Oral Comp)0.82 (Language Comp)

Total Test0.84 (Oral Comp)0.86 (Language Comp)

Observations

EDP626

Administration is easy Neither scale requires reading by examinee Scoring is fast and reliable Based on its reliability, OWLS should only be

used as a whole to help make classroom decisions, since oral composites has reliability of 0.90 or higher.

Test re-test showed low reliability, perhaps because the second time the test was given was usually eight weeks after the first administration (instead of two weeks).

Little information was provided related to predictive validity.

Task-demands on the test may not be ‘typical” of those found in the classroom setting.

Second Edition is available (OWLS-II)

Reliability ResultsSplit half method

Listening Comprehension--0.84Oral Expression—0.87Oral Composite—0.91

Test - RetestListening Comprehension: 0.73 to 0.80Oral Expression: 0.77 to 0.86Oral Composite: 0.81 to 0.89

InterraterOral Expression Scale: mean of four age groups: 0.95

Presented by:

Tricia BaydalMaria Elena Selznick