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Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education Advance Access published online on June 5, 2008
The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, doi:10.1093/deafed/enn017
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The Appropriateness of the NC State-Mandated Reading Competency Test for Deaf Students as a Criterion for High School Graduation

Jana Lollis

North Carolina School for the Deaf, Morganton, North Carolina

Carol LaSasso

Department of Hearing, Speech, and Language Sciences, Gallaudet University


  Abstract

Deaf students consistently score lower on standardized measures of reading comprehension than their hearing peers. Most of the studies that have been conducted to explain this phenomenon have focused on variables within the reader, and important differences have been found between deaf and hearing readers. More recently, in the face of increasingly high-stakes consequences, researchers are looking "outside" the reader, at the tests themselves, to determine whether there are fairness issues for special populations, such as deaf students. The study reported here, the first of its kind with deaf students, examines the North Carolina (NC) reading comprehension test. The study employs the same method used originally by NC to determine its appropriateness of the test for the general population of NC students. The experts in this article, like those in the original construction of the NC test, are familiar with the content of the reading curriculum in NC; however, the raters in this article bring a special perspective related to teaching and testing reading of students who are deaf. Findings from this study raise questions about the appropriateness of the NC reading test for deaf students. Implications for future research and instructional practice are discussed.

No conflicts of interest were reported. Correspondence should be sent to Jana Lollis, North Carolina School for the Deaf, Morganton, North Carolina (e-mail: jana.lollis{at}ncmail.net).

Received December 10, 2007; revised March 31, 2008; accepted April 14, 2008


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