The primary objective of this work was the scale development of a research-based instrument (EL-Capstone) that may be used to measure EL core-knowledge levels of adults working in an environment with expectations of supporting literacy development of young children. Earlier concept inventory, emergent literacy, and test theory literature informed the framework for this assessment instrument. Designed with three distinct stages, pre-participant, participant, and post-participant, the processes was summarized by six general tasks: (1) define the content, (2) develop and select the instrument items, (3) informal informant sessions, (4) interview sessions with librarians and early literacy practitioners, (5) instrument administration, and (6) evaluation and final refinement. The entire consent-form participant activities centered on developing the items for inclusion in the EL-Capstone inventory. During the first task, the Developing Early Literacy, National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) 2008 Report was adopted as "EL-Expert" surrogates to bind the epistemological framework to the NELP authors' theoretical underpinnings of EL concepts. The NELP Report represents an extremely dense synthesis of the EL experimental and quasi-experimental research. By the end of the pre-participant stage concept-mapping activity, ninety-seven potential instrument items had been constructed that fell into three categories, i.e., predictiveness, definitions, and activities. Accompanying the refined sixty-two items presented during the interview sessions (n=10) were 3 ranking questions, i.e., strength of each concept, difficulty level, and perceived importance. The interview results informed instrument item reductions and modifications. Two alternating online versions of EL-Capstone collected data responses for 30 days from anonymous adult volunteers (n=824). An item response theory two-parameter logistic model (2-PL) was applied during the post-participant stage to identify each item's difficulty and discrimination parameters. When fully developed, this research-based scale may be used to measure EL-levels of adults working in an environment with expectations of supporting literacy development of young children. The subsequent collected information may be used to inform early literacy curriculum development and to support program evaluation. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Library and Information Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2011. / March 17, 2011. / 2-PL, IRT, Item Response Theory, Early Literacy / Includes bibliographical references. / Kathleen Burnett, Professor Directing Dissertation; Christopher J. Lonigan, University Representative; Gary Burnett, Committee Member; Eliza Dresang, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_254311 |
| Contributors | Capps, Janet L. (authoraut), Burnett, Kathleen (professor directing dissertation), Lonigan, Christopher J. (university representative), Burnett, Gary (committee member), Dresang, Eliza (committee member), School of Communication (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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