Construct and Predictive Validity of the California Entry Level Test

Abstract

The Entry Level Test (ELT) (California State Department of Education, 1974) is administered to all first grade pupils in California as part of the state assessment program. ELT means are used with demographic variables to predict differences among schools and districts on subsequent reading achievement tests.

Factor analyses based on a one-percent random sample of all first grade children (n = 3010) resulted in distinct factors for each of the subtests, Immediate Recall, Letter Recognition, Auditory Discrimination, Visual Discrimination, and Language Development. Two ethnic group factors were also identified that shared no substantial loadings with any of the test variables.

Evidence of convergent validity for the ELT subtests was obtamed from multitrait-multimethod matrices with four other prereading and reading tests. Discriminant validity was weak for all subtests except Auditory Discrimination because of the extreme easiness of the ELT.

Simple correlations between the ELT and the Reading Test Second and Third Grades (California State Department of Education, 1976a) at the school and district levels were on the order of 80. When combined with other background factors such as an index of pupil socio-economic status (SES) in multiple regression analyses 70% of the variance in means was explained The validity of the ELT was very high for its intended predictive purpose, especially when one considers that it is a very short and easy test

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