Validity of General Outcome Measures for Predicting Secondary Students' Performance on Content-Area Tasks

Abstract

This study investigated the validity of three curriculum-based measures for predicting the performance of secondary students on content-area tasks. It was hypothesized that oral reading, maze, and vocabulary measures would predict students' performance on comprehension, acquisition, and retention of content-area material. Participants were 184 urban middle school students, including 13 with mild disabilities. Reliable correlations were found between each of the three general outcome measures and performance on the content tasks. Results of regression analyses supported the vocabulary measure as the most efficient and effective measure for predicting student performance on the three content-area tasks.