Use of the woodcock-johnson-revised writing tests with students with learning disabilities

This study investigated the performance of 47 sixth-through eighth-grade students with learning disabilities on the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised (WJ-R) writing tests (Woodcock &Johnson, 1989). The purposes were to investigate the construct and concurrent validity of these new tests. The students’ WJ-R writing cluster scores were compared to those of a random sample of 47 students selected from the WJ-R standardization group. In addition, interrater reliability for the WJ-R Writing Samples tests was investigated, and the correlations among the WJ-R writing clusters and tests and several other writing tests were examined. The results supported findings of previous studies; students with learning disabilities have significantly more difficulty with basic writing skills than do their non-learning-disabled peers. The intercorrelations and interrater reliability study provide further support for the validity of the WJ-R writing tests.