The Effects of Stimuli Format on a Computer-Based Decoding Task

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of test format (i.e., layout of stimuli) on the accuracy and response rate performance of emerging readers on a computer-based nonsense word reading task. Fifty-three second graders completed a modified nonsense word fluency (NWF) task with stimuli presented in five different formats. Format variations included column and row layouts, as well as differences in the number of stimuli. Results from nonparametric comparisons showed there are statistically significant performance differences between test formats for both accuracy and response rate score metrics. Follow-up comparisons show that response rate score metrics appear to be more influenced by test format than accuracy score metrics, and the number of stimuli presented at a time appears to have a significant effect on student performance. Implications for the role of response rate in test development and future research are discussed.