1. Technology Assisted Reading Assessment “Accessible Reading Assessment” and HTML Cara Laitusis Teresa King Elizabeth Ayad Markku Hakkinen

2. Technology Assisted Reading Assessment Materials 2 test forms (42 items each) Reading passage followed by multiple choice options. Post-test survey

3. Technology Assisted Reading Assessment Population 49 boys, 44 girls Grades 7-10 10 different states

4. Technology Assisted Reading Assessment Test Forms Form A (Maximum Accessibility) Form B (Business as Usual)

5. Technology Assisted Reading Assessment Form A (Accessible) Higher interest passages Included “context” sentence Panel of disability experts reviewed items and made suggested revisions (simplified language) Additional level of proofing for braille/large print forms Changes to formatting Two additional choices of test formats (audio, html)

6. Technology Assisted Reading Assessment Sample by Form Test Form A Test Form B Total BrailleLarge Print Braille18--18 Large Print--26 Audio (MP3)111829 HTML516 Audio+Braille10--10 Audio+Large Print--44 Total444993

7. Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

8. Mean Scores by Format FormatN Form AForm B MeanSDMeanSD Braille 1835.229.6134.838.08 Large Print 2635.588.8231.779.59 Audio 2933.287.1726.7912.22 HTML 639.673.6728.678.31 Audio+Braille 928.118.5926.1110.54 Audio+Large Print 429.509.6822.757.50

9. Technology Assisted Reading Assessment

10. Student Comments on HTML 5 students reported HTML was better –“because it is easier and faster to navigate (performing the find command made things a lot simpler unlike the braille where I had to keep browsing through many pages and numbered paragraphs)” –“because both reading the passage and answering the questions was a lot easier than the braille. I did not use the audio.” –“I could finish more quickly and understand what I was reading.” –“some was read aloud and if there was a word you could not pronounce it would pronounce it right. It was faster than I could read the braille. 1 student reported HTML was worse –“I couldn’t understand it as well”

11. Technology Assisted Reading Assessment HTML Version Followed Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) see http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/ http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/

12. Technology Assisted Reading Assessment Limitations Small sample sizes Confounding of other accessibility elements with file format