WRAT4: An Overview
Purpose & Recommended Use
The Wide Range Achievement Test was first published back in 1946. Since that time,
there have been several revisions which provided updated norms and slight
modifications to the assessment. However, throughout such revisions the assessment
has retained a similar focus as previous editions including the three basic codes of
reading, writing, and arithmetic Robertson & Wilkinson (2006).
The Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT4) is designed to measure basic
academic skills including word reading, spelling, and mathematic computation. It has
become widely accepted for use in a number of settings as a means to assess effective
learning and communication. According to the WRAT4 manual, the assessment can
be used with anyone ages 5 to 94 years of age. Its ease of use and administration
procedure makes it a great simple assessment to use according to Dawn Meissner,
school psychologist with the Marshfield School District.
Areas Measured/Item Description
The WRAT4 consists of four components including: sentence comprehension, word
reading, spelling, and math computation. The sentence comprehension portion
consists of 50 items, and is further broken down into six starting points (A-F). Each
item in this component of the WRAT4 contains a sentence with a blank space
somewhere therein, and the test-taker is to write a response that is fitting and
corresponds accordingly making the sentence sound.
The spelling portion of the assessment consists of 42 items the participant
must attempt to spell. Administers speak the word, use it in an already provided
sentence, and repeat the word a second time. Next, the mathematics portion of the
assessment consists of 40 items where participants are asked to do a variety of
mathematical problems including: addition, subtraction, ordering, multiplication,
division, and basic simplifications. Finally, the word reading portion of the
assessment consists of 55 items/words that participants must speak correctly. Words
in this portion of the test range from one syllable, to words with syllables greater than
four.
Administration Procedures
The WRAT4’s manual devotes approximately 28 pages outlining administration and
scoring procedures. I would like to touch upon some of the keys points regarding
qualification, time allotted, order of administration, and small-group administration.
User qualification refers to requirements expected by those who administer the
assessment. The WRAT4 is designed to be used by professionals who possess
training in administering and scoring of psychological tools. “Those who use
psychological tests should confine their testing and related assessment activities to
their area of competence, as demonstrated through education, supervised training,
experience, and appropriate credentialing” (p. 5) Robertson & Wilkinson (2006).
Order of administration for the WRAT4 is relatively flexible. That is,
administers may give participants any of four subtests separately, or in any
combination of two or more. The recommended order of administration is word
reading, sentence comprehension, spelling, and math computation. Although, any
order may be used with the exception that the word reading test should come before
the sentence comprehension test as the reading subtest can be used as a routing test to
determine the start of appropriate items on the proceeding test—this may shorten test
time as well according to Robertson & Wilkinson (2006). Time allotted for the four
components depends on age and the condition of the test-taker. In most cases,
children ages 5-7 require between 15-25 minutes. Ages 8 and up should require
approximately 35-45 minutes.
Finally, the WRAT4 is ideally designed to be administered individually,
specifically for the reading and sentence comprehension portions. However, children
ages 8 and up may be given the other subcomponents of the assessment in small
groups according to WRAT4’s manual.
Assessment Validity
Validity, which refers to the extent to which the assessment measures what it is
intended, is quite good for the WRAT4. Part of this is due to the fact the 77% of the
test items on the WRAT4 were retained from the WRAT3. The authors note that the
reading, spelling, and math computation subtests appear in the WRAT3 which
underwent much statistical analysis at the time of the WRAT3 standardization
conducted during the early 1990s (Robertson & Wilkinson (2006). Thus, there are
about 23% of items that are subject to investigation in terms of assessing content
validity (on the reading, spelling and math subtests).
The sentence comprehension subtest which is new to the WRAT4 version
underwent much evaluation and items were submitted to an extensive item analysis
program where additions, deletions, and modifications were made. Further, item
validities were obtained by administering the WRAT Expanded reading
comprehension test to participants which added important information to the final
item selection and subtest assembly processes Robertson & Wilkinson (2006).
However, I suspect that as this new subtest is used there are likely to be modifications
made to items as updated versions emerge—similar to what emerged from the
WRAT3 to WRAT4 versions.
Norm Groups
The development of group norms of the WRAT4 was created to yield age and gradebased standard scores and percentile ranks, stanines, NCEs grade equivalents, and
Rasch ability scaled scores. Again, since much was carried over from the WRAT3, I
will focus on norm development of the reading composite standard score. According
to the authors, after the standard scores for the four WRAT4 subtests had been
developed, a reading composite standard score was obtained based on the sum of
standard scores on the word reading and sentence comprehension subtests.
Distributions of these standard-score sums were prepared separately by age and by
grade. For the age-based distribution, the distribution of standard score sums was
transformed to a standard score with mean 100 and standard deviation of 15. A
similar transformation was also done for grade-based distribution.
Assessment Reliability
Reliability in terms of internal consistency is quite good for the WRAT4. Cronbach’s
coefficient alpha is a generalized method for determining internal consistency which was
also used with the WRAT4. Accordingly, the median coefficient subtest reliability
coefficients, by age, range from .87 to .93. Robertson & Wilkinson (2006) report the
following coefficients as follows: math comp. .89, spelling .91, sentence comp. .93, and
reading .92. These coefficients suggest that the WRAT4 is in fact measuring the
designated content consistently.
Desirable/Undesirable Features
Probably the most desirable aspects of the WRAT4 are that it can be administered in little
time and to a rather wide age range. Its test cards are easy to follow and provide clear
direction for the examiner. Although, the best feature of this assessment is that it breaks
each subtest up with starting points which can be used when examinees are struggling;
thus, the examiner may jump to another starting point that is more level-appropriate.
The most undesirable aspect of the WRAT4 is that it is generally intended to be
administered to participants on an individual basis. This is always the case for the
reading and sentence comprehension components. Though, the authors do note the other
components may be given to small groups. Another undesirable aspect of this assessment
is that it does not offer many choices or synonyms for correct responses in the reading
comprehension subtest. Some items only offer two or three appropriate responses.
While it is optimistic to think examiners will compensate for this, it is a matter of how
rigid the examiner is—this could inevitably influence one’s score if suitable responses are
not accepted due to a lack of appropriate responses provided.
Overall Evaluation
Overall, I think the WRAT4 is a good assessment given my limited experience with
testing. The instructions for administering were clear, and I felt comfortable writing most
of this evaluation. It is my understanding that this is a relatively well-known assessment
and I probably did myself a favor by becoming acquainted with it. I think this
assessment would be one I may potentially use if I were involved with testing, though, I
would also like to evaluate some others to determine whether there are others better for
my present level.
References
Robertson, Gary & Wilkinson, Gary. (2006). WRAT4 Wide Range Achievement
Test Professional Manual. Lutz, FL: Psychological Assessment Services
(PAR).