Monitoring motivation and academic growth in writing for young English language learners

The purpose of this study was to explore the technical adequacy and appropriateness of using benchmarks established with the general population with two forms of Curriculum Based Measures-Writing (CBM-W), Word Dictation (WD) and Picture Word (PW), with English Language Learners (ELs) in the 1st through 3rd grades as well as explore the utility of combining a measure of motivated academic behavior (i.e., Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener-Academic Behavior subscale (SAEBRS-AB)) with CBM-W for identifying risk in writing for young ELs. ELs in the 1st through 3rd grades (n = 71) were administered two forms of WD and PW in the fall, winter, and spring of the same academic year. Teachers (n = 9) also completed the SAEBRS-AB at each time-point for each participating student. Correlations between forms at each time-point were used to establish alternate form reliability and validity was established using two criterion measures via correlations and regression. The utility of combining CBM-W with SAEBRS-AB was examined via logistic regression and Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis using researcher determined cutscores for risk on the two criterion measures. Results indicated that both forms of CBMW are reliable and valid measures of general writing performance for young ELs, that benchmarks drawn from the general population are generally applicable to young ELs, and that integrating the SAEBRS-AB with either form of CBM-W improves diagnostic accuracy.