Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a writing achievement battery and to evaluate its applicability. The study was divided in two phases. The primary focus of Study 1 was the development of the Writing Achievement Battery consisting of three subtests : Handwriting, Spelling, and Composition. The items of the three subtests were selected through consultation with elementary school teachers. The preliminary Handwriting and Spelling subtests were administered to 264 elementary school children in 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade. Through this procedure the response method of the Handwriting subtest was determined and the items of the spelling subtest were selected through item-analysis. Study 2 was conducted to examine the reliability and validity of the Writing Achievement Battery constructed in Study 1. The battery was administered to 256 elementary school children. To examine the reliability of the WAB, Cronbach's α coefficient, the consistency between evaluators in the Handwriting subtest, and the test-retest correlation coefficient were calculated. The consistency of the H : .83, S : .87, C : .90, suggested an internal consistency of the subtest. The .45 to .98 consistency between evaluators indicated that consistency was above average. The test-retest coefficients .47 to .65, .89, .57 to .80, for H, S, C, respectively indicated that the Spelling subtest was generally stable and the other two subtests were less stable. For the criterion-related validity, the scores from the WAB were compared with those of the teachers evaluations of the Handwriting Subtest and the Composition Subtest, the BGT, the Spelling Recognition subtest of the Basic Learning Functioning Battery, and the students' grade in the subject of Korean. There were significant correlations between the three subtests of the WAB and the criteria and constructs. The group differences according to gender and SES(Socio-Economic Status) were also analyzed. There were significant group differences across gender and there were no group differences in SES. This evidence supported the validity of the WAB.