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Grasby KL, Byrne B, Olson RK. Validity of large-scale reading tests: A phenotypic and behaviour-genetic analysis. Aust J Educ. 2015;59(1):5-21doi: 10.1177/0004944114563775.
Grasby, K. L., Byrne, B., & Olson, R. K. (2015). Validity of large-scale reading tests: A phenotypic and behaviour-genetic analysis. Australian journal of education, 59(1), 5-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944114563775
Grasby, Katrina L, et al. "Validity of large-scale reading tests: A phenotypic and behaviour-genetic analysis." Australian journal of education vol. 59,1 (2015): 5-21. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944114563775
Grasby KL, Byrne B, Olson RK. Validity of large-scale reading tests: A phenotypic and behaviour-genetic analysis. Aust J Educ. 2015 Apr;59(1):5-21. doi: 10.1177/0004944114563775. Epub 2015 Mar 09. PMID: 27721516; PMCID: PMC5051576.
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Aust J Educ. 2015 Apr;59(1):5-21. doi: 10.1177/0004944114563775. Epub 2015 Mar 09.

Validity of large-scale reading tests: A phenotypic and behaviour-genetic analysis.

Australian journal of education

Katrina L Grasby, Brian Byrne, Richard K Olson

Affiliations

  1. Discipline of Psychology, School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences, University of New England, Australia.
  2. Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Cognition and its Disorders, and Discipline of Psychology, School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences, University of New England, Australia.
  3. Director of Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center, and Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, USA.

PMID: 27721516 PMCID: PMC5051576 DOI: 10.1177/0004944114563775

Abstract

Each year, all Australian students in grades 3, 5, 7, and 9 sit nationwide large-scale tests in literacy and numeracy, which have their validity frequently questioned. We compared the performance of Grade 3 twins on these large-scale reading tests with their performance on three individually administered literacy tests in comprehension, word reading and vocabulary within a genetically sensitive design. Comprehension, word reading, and vocabulary accounted for a substantial amount of the variance in school reading tests. Performance on large-scale reading tests and individually administered tests was moderately to substantially heritable and the same genes contributed to performance in both types of test. These results confirm that large-scale school reading tests measure, at least in part, the literacy skills tapped by individual tests that are frequently considered to be the "gold-standard" in testing.

Keywords: Reading ability; academic achievement; environmental influences; genetics; literacy skills; twins

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests None declared.

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