CONSTRUCTION OF READING ABILITY ASSESSMENT TOOL FOR 2ND GRADE STUDENTS IN THAI LANGUAGE SUBJECT

Abstract

          The purposes of this research were to 1) develop an assessment tool for evaluating reading ability in the Thai language among Grade 2 students, 2) examine the quality of the assessment tool, and 3) establish local norms for interpreting scores and creating a manual for the assessment of Grade 2 reading abilities. The sample group consisted of 455 Grade 2 students during the 2024 academic year. The sample was selected through stratified random sampling. The instruments used were interviews and the reading ability assessment tool. Data analysis involved both content analysis and quantitative analysis, including content validity, difficulty, discrimination power, reliability, concurrent validity, and norm. The results showed that 1) the developed assessment tool comprised five key components: reading aloud, interpreting word and passage meanings, forming and answering comprehension questions, identifying main ideas, and expressing opinions. It was divided into two sets: the first set assessed reading aloud, while the second evaluated reading comprehension. 2) The assessment tool demonstrated a content validity index ranging from 0.60 to 1.00. For the reading aloud component, inter-rater reliability was 0.95. The reading comprehension component had an item difficulty index ranging from 0.28 to 0.80, an item discrimination index ranging from 0.44 to 0.96, a full-scale reliability coefficient (KR20) of 0.92, and concurrent validity, as confirmed through T-test analyses. Additionally, the local norms for the tool indicated that raw scores ranged from 5 to 49. T-scores ranged from 23.07 to 61.31, and percentiles ranged from 0.20 to 97.80