CASE STUDY - INVENTORIES AND ASSESSMENTS

Case Study - Inventories and Assessments

Megan Knight

EDU 474

4 December 2020

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CASE STUDY - INVENTORIES AND ASSESSMENTS

Inventories and Assessments

Student Pseudonym: Anna

Grade Level: 8th grade

Interest Inventory:

The first inventory that I administered was the Inventory of Experiences Interest

Inventory. I chose to administer this inventory because it is appropriate for students in middle

school, and Anna is in 8th grade. The purpose of this inventory is to gain general background

knowledge about students. This Inventory of Experiences includes multiple categories, such as

Special Interests, Your Family, and You and Books. Some interests that Anna expressed include

playing volleyball, playing board games, cleaning her room, and making art. In addition, Anna

enjoys taking her dog for a walk or hanging out with her friends when she has free time. Anna’s

favorite TV channel is Animal Planet, and her favorite movie is The Kissing Booth. Additionally,

Anna also expressed that her favorite subject in school is reading.

The next category of the Inventory of Experiences is Family. According to the inventory,

Anna has an older sister. Anna enjoys going out to eat and playing basketball with her sister. In

addition, some other activities that Anna enjoys with her family include watching television and

going to restaurants. At home, Anna helps out around the house, and occasionally takes the trash

out. She earns an allowance for doing these chores, but she likes to save her money.

Finally, the last category of the Inventory of Experiences is titled You and Books.

According to the inventory, Anna has a library card, but she hadn’t used it yet when this

inventory was administered. However, she has used her library card through the online app

called Libby since this inventory was administered. In addition, Anna expressed that she enjoys

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reading comic books. Finally, Anna likes when others read to her, and she likes to read to others

occasionally.

Attitude Assessment:

I administered the Rhody Attitude Assessment because Anna is a student in 8th grade.

The Rhody Attitude Assessment is designed for assessing students’ attitudes toward reading in

secondary schools, or specifically grades 7-12. The purpose of this assessment is to determine

students’ attitudes toward reading in different settings and for different purposes, such as school,

the library, home, and recreation. Teachers can use the results from this assessment in order to

assess a change in students’ attitudes towards reading over time, provide counseling to individual

students, or simply understand how their students feel toward reading. On the Rhody Attitude

Assessment, students read and respond to 25 different statements about reading in each of the

five clusters. Students can respond by marking an X under strongly disagree, disagree,

undecided, agree, or strongly agree. In order to score this assessment, students can receive

scores on a scale of 1 to 5, from very negative responses to very positive responses.

The first cluster of reading that the Rhody Attitude Assessment measures is School

Related Reading. The first statement that falls into this cluster is item 11, which states: You

seldom read except when you have to do a book report. For this statement, Anna selected

disagree, which indicates that she does read outside of just when she has to do a book report.

Therefore, this is considered a positive response, and earns a score of 4/5. The next statement

that belongs in the cluster of School Related Reading is item 18, which states: You would rather

someone just tell you information so that you won’t have to read to get it. Anna disagreed with

this statement earning a score of 4, which indicates that she has a positive attitude.

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The next set of statements fall into the Reading in the Library cluster. Item 9 states: You

never check out a book from the library. Anna disagreed with this statement, which indicates that

she does check out books from the library and has a positive attitude. Next, item 20 states: You

generally check out a book when you go to the library. Anna agreed with this statement, which

indicates that she has a positive attitude. Therefore, she received 4 points on this statement.

Based on her responses to these two statements, Anna seems to have a positive attitude toward

reading in the library.

There are two statements that coincide with the next cluster, Reading in the Home. On

item 4, you have a lot of books at home, Anna disagreed. According to the assessment, this

indicates that she has a negative attitude toward reading in the home. However, I feel that this

response could also indicate that she has a lack of resources and does not have many books

available for her to read at home. The next statement that relates to reading in the home is item

10, which states: You like to stay at home and read. On this statement, Anna agreed. Therefore,

this indicates that she has a positive attitude toward reading. Based on Anna’s responses to the

items in this cluster, she enjoys reading at home, but does not have many books at home for her

to read.

The fourth cluster is Other Recreational Reading. This cluster includes items 5, 17, 22,

24, and 25. Anna agreed with each of these statements. For instance, she likes to read books in

her free time, share books with her friends, broaden her interests through reading, improve her

vocabulary so she can use more words, and get books as gifts. Based on her responses to each of

these statements, Anna has a positive attitude toward recreational reading.

Finally, the last cluster of the Rhody Attitude Assessment is General Reading. This

cluster contains items 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, and 23. Anna received scores of 4

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or 5 for her responses to each of these statements. For instance, Anna had a positive attitude on

items 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 14, 15, and 21. In addition, she had a very positive attitude on items 7, 12, 13,

16, 19, and 23. For example, Anna expressed that she really loves to read and that she reads a lot.

She strongly disagreed that reading is boring and a waste of time. According to these responses,

Anna seems to have a very positive attitude toward reading in general.

Overall, the results of the Rhody Attitude Assessment indicate that Anna has a positive

attitude toward reading. After scoring each response, I added up her scores. Anna scored a total

of 104/125 points. Therefore, this shows that Anna has a pretty positive attitude toward reading.

Reader Self-Perception Scale:

Next, I administered the Reader Self-Perception Scale 2 for grades 7 through 10

because Anna is in 8th grade. The purpose of the Reader Self-Perception Scale 2 is to determine

how students in grades 7 through 10 view themselves as readers. This assessment measures

students’ self perceptions towards reading in four dimensions, which include Progress,

Observational Comparison, Social Feedback, and Physiological States. Students are rated on a 5

point scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. Students earn 1 point if they select

Strongly Disagree, 2 points for Disagree, 3 points for Undecided, 4 points for Agree, and 5

points if they select Strongly Agree. There are a total of 47 statements that students rate

themselves on.

The first dimension of self efficacy that the Reader Self Perception Scale 2 assesses is

Progress. The statements in this dimension reflect how the student views her progress in reading.

Anna agreed or strongly agreed with most statements in this area. However, she disagreed with

statement 31, which is: I can figure out hard words better than I could before. On the Progress

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scale, Anna scored 64/45. This scaled score places her in the 55th percentile, which is around

average for students her age. Based on these results, Anna has a somewhat positive self

perception of her reading progress.

The next dimension that the Reader Self Perception Scale 2 measures is Observational

Comparison. This dimension measures how the student feels about her reading compared to

other students. Anna responded with disagree, undecided, and agree for each of these

statements. On statements 5, 15, 37, and 43, Anna agreed. On statements 10, 12, 13, Anna was

undecided. Finally, Anna disagreed with statements 20 and 27. For example, Anna believes that

she needs less help reading than other students, she can read faster than other students, she

knows the meanings of more words than other students and is more confident in her own reading

than other students. However, Anna doesn’t think that she can handle difficult ideas or

understand important vocabulary words better than her classmates. Anna scored 29/30 on the

Observational Comparison dimension, which places her in the 40th percentile. This indicates that

her self perception is average compared to her peers. Therefore, she has a somewhat positive or

indifferent self-perception of her own reading compared to her classmates.

The third dimension of the Reader Self Perception Scale 2 is Social Feedback. This

dimension measures how the student perceives others’ opinions of her reading. Anna agreed or

strongly agreed with all of the statements in this dimension, which indicates that she has a

positive self-perception in this area. For example, she feels that other students and her teachers

think that she is a good reader, and enjoy hearing her read. In addition, Anna strongly agreed

with statement 40, which indicates that she believes that her teachers think she does a good job

of interpreting what she reads. On the Social Feedback scale, Anna scored 37/45, which places

her in the 90th percentile. Based on this score, Anna’s self perception is high compared to other

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students her age in this area. Therefore, she has a very positive self-perception in the area of

Social Feedback.

Finally, the last dimension of the Reader Self Perception Scale 2 is Physiological States.

This dimension measures the student’s feelings while engaging in reading activities. In this

dimension, Anna either agreed or strongly agreed with each of the statements, which indicates

that she views reading as a pleasant and enjoyable activity. For example, Anna strongly agreed

with statements 26, 30, and 44, which reveals that she feels good inside when she reads, and

really likes to read. On the Physiological States scale, Anna scored 51/40. This scaled score

places Anna in the 85th percentile. According to the Reader Self Perception Scale 2, Anna’s

reader self perception is considered high when compared to other students her age. Based on

these results, Anna has a positive self-perception of her physiological states associated with

reading.

Overall, Anna’s self-perception for reading is about average to high for her age. This

indicates that she has a mainly positive view of her own reading abilities. Therefore, Anna’s self

esteem is high for reading. This is important because when a student has high self esteem in their

own reading abilities, this leads to increased motivation to read.

Motivation to Read Profile:

Finally, the last Inventory/Assessment that I administered was the Motivation to Read

Profile. The purpose of the Motivation to Read Profile is to determine how motivated students

are toward reading. There are two parts to the Motivation to Read Profile. First I administered

the Reading Survey. On the survey, students respond to 20 items, which measure students’ self

concept as a reader and value of reading. These items are scored on a 4 point Likert scale. The

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highest total score a student can receive on this survey is 80 points. The second component to the

Motivation to Read Profile is the Conversational Interview. Both of these components provide an

overall picture of how motivated the student is to read.

The first category that the Motivation to Read Survey measures is the student’s Self-

Concept as Reader. In this area, Anna gave mostly positive responses. On items 1, 7, 9, 13, 15,

and 19 Anna earned 4 points for very positive responses. For instance, she expressed that her

friends think she is a very good reader, she understands almost everything she reads, and she

believes she is a very good reader. In addition, Anna scored 3 points on item 5 because she can

sometimes figure out a word that she doesn’t know. However, Anna did receive a score of 2 for

items 3, 11, and 17. For example, she believes that she reads about the same as her friends, she

sometimes worries about what other kids think of her reading, and she sometimes talks about her

ideas when sharing stories with a group. On the Self-Concept as Reader scale, Anna scored

36/40 points. This is equivalent to a percentage score of 90%. Based on these results Anna has a

pretty positive self-concept as a reader.

The next category that the Motivation to Read Survey measures is the student’s Value of

Reading. In this category, Anna scored 4 for almost every item. However, she did score 3 points

on items 6 and 8, and 2 points on item 4. For example, on item 6, Anna said that she sometimes

tells her friends about good books. In addition, on item 8, Anna responded that she thinks people

who read a lot are interesting. Each of these responses earned a score of 3 points. On question 4,

Anna put that her best friends think reading is OK to do, so she received 2 points. On the Value

of Reading scale, Anna scored 36/40, which is the same as her score for Self-Concept. Again,

this is a percentage score of 90%. Therefore, Anna has a high value of reading.

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Overall, the results of the Motivation to Read Survey indicate that Anna is a motivated

reader. Her Full Survey Raw Score is 72/80. In addition her Full Survey Percentage Score is

90%. According to these results, Anna is highly motivated to read.

After I administered the Motivation to Read Survey, I conducted the Conversational

Interview. In this interview, I asked Anna a variety of questions in order to get a better idea of

her feelings toward reading. From this interview, I learned that some of Anna’s favorite books

are Awkward by Svetlana Chmakova and The Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels by Raina

Telgemeier and Ann M. Martin. Anna was able to tell me about these books, what she learned

from reading them, and why she enjoyed reading them. For example, she explained that she

learned about how to communicate and make new friends from reading Awkward. In addition,

Anna also expressed that she enjoys reading graphic novels because of the pictures. Finally from

this interview, I learned that Anna’s parents and teachers get her interested and excited about

reading because they buy her books and help her find new books to read. After interviewing

Anna, I could tell that she really enjoys reading and is very motivated to read books.

Phonemic Awareness: I did not administer the Yopp-Singer Assessment because Anna is in 8th

grade, and this assessment is for students in kindergarten through 2nd grade.