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Language Testing 2008 25 (4) 495–519

Development of a cognate awareness


measure for Spanish-speaking English
language learners
Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon Center for
Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC, USA
Maria Carlo University of Miami, USA
Diane August and Mohammed Louguit Center for
Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC, USA

This paper describes the development and validation of the Cognate


Awareness Test (CAT), which measures cognate awareness in Spanish-
speaking English Language Learners (ELLs) in fourth and fifth grade. An
investigation of differential performance on the two subtests of the CAT
(cognates and noncognates) provides evidence that the instrument is sensi-
tive to English–Spanish cognate awareness among elementary school-age
Spanish-speaking ELLs. Cognates were highly correlated with the children’s
Spanish WLPB-R Picture Vocabulary scores, whereas noncognates were
highly correlated to children’s English WLPB-R Picture Vocabulary scores.

Keywords: applied linguistics, cognates, English language learners, mor-


phological awareness, Spanish-speaking children, vocabulary

Vocabulary knowledge plays a crucial role in the development of read-


ing comprehension for both monolingual, native-English-speaking
children (Anderson & Freebody, 1983; Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998;
Snow, Cancini, Gonzales & Shriberg, 1989) and English language
learners (ELLs) (August & Hakuta, 1997; Carlisle, Beeman, Davis
& Spharim, 1999; Carlisle, Beeman & Shah, 1996; Dufva & Voeten,
1999; Jiménez, García & Pearson, 1996). August, Carlo, Dressler
and Snow (2005) report that many ELLs in US schools are deficient
in English vocabulary, and that this deficiency impedes their reading
comprehension.

Address for correspondence: Valerie Malabonga, Center for Applied Linguistics, 4646 40th Street
NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20016, USA; email: valerie@cal.org

© 2008 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) DOI:10.1177/0265532208094274
496 Development of a cognate awareness measure

One particular type of vocabulary, cognates, is the focus of the


Cognate Awareness Test (CAT) described in this paper. Whitley
(2002) defines cognates as words that have similar meaning, spelling
and form, and have been inherited from the same ancestor language.
In the case of Spanish and English, cognates are descended from
earlier derivatives of the Indo-European language family (Anthony,
1954; Lalor & Kirsner, 2000; Schelletter, 2002). Cognate awareness
is the perception or knowledge that helps individuals recognize the
relationship between an unfamiliar word in one language and a
familiar word (cognate) in another, and thus understand the meaning
of the unfamiliar word (Cunningham & Graham, 2000; Nagy,
Garcia, Durgonoglu & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993). In this paper we
describe the development and validation of the CAT as a measure of
the ability of Spanish-speaking third through fifth graders to use
knowledge of Spanish words to discern the meaning of their English
cognates.
According to the 2000 US Census, native Spanish speakers
(NSSs) constitute 66% of the school-age population of ELLs
(Batalova, 2006). The large number of English words with Spanish
cognates provides some support in English text comprehension for
these ELLs if they are aware of cognate relationships (Jiménez et al.,
1996). As Nagy et al. (1993, p. 242) wrote: ‘If Hispanic bilingual
children know the Spanish words, and recognize the cognate rela-
tionships, their Spanish knowledge should provide them with sub-
stantial help in English vocabulary, especially difficult reading
vocabulary.’ Spanish and English share thousands of cognates; these
often appear in content area academic texts, so increasing children’s
cognate awareness is one method of accelerating their English
vocabulary development and comprehension of these texts (August &
Shanahan, 2006; August et al., 2005). An instrument such as the
CAT, combined with L1 and L2 vocabulary tests, can assess chil-
dren’s ability to use L1 vocabulary knowledge to determine the
meanings of L2 cognates, and can also measure the effects of inter-
ventions designed to build cognate knowledge.
Although Nagy et al. (1993) and Cunningham and Graham (2000)
developed cognate awareness measures similar to the CAT, their
tests have some limitations. Neither investigated test reliability and
validity. Furthermore, although Cunningham and Graham piloted
their test with native Spanish-speaking as well as native English-
speaking adults, their test was developed for native English-speaking
children learning Spanish in a two-way immersion program, not for
NSS children learning English.
Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 497

I Development of the test


The CAT was developed as part of a larger study (August, Carlo &
Calderón, 2005) whose purpose was to investigate the transfer of read-
ing skills from Spanish to English by Spanish-speaking elementary-
school children in transitional Spanish-to-English language
programs. In developing the CAT, it was important to identify
Spanish–English cognates that NSS children from third through fifth
grade were likely to know in Spanish but not in English. Many
Spanish–English cognates, such as infirm, castigate, and accom-
pany, are high-frequency words in oral Spanish but low-frequency
words in oral English (Cunningham & Graham, 2000). We hypothe-
sized that knowledge of high-frequency Spanish words would help
children with high cognate awareness to understand the meaning of
low-frequency English words. To test this hypothesis, we designed
the CAT using low-frequency English words. Half of the words had
Spanish cognates with high frequency in Spanish, and the other half
had no Spanish cognates. We used low English frequency as the
basis for determining word difficulty because research on English
monolingual children indicates that word frequency is a primary
basis for the order by which children acquire words (Biemiller &
Slonim, 2001).
We used Nash’s (1997) dictionary of Spanish cognates and the
cognates from Nagy et al. (1993) as starting points. Word fre-
quencies were checked using the corpora of Kucera and Francis
(2005), Francis and Kucera (1982), and Davies (2005). Although
these corpora are based on materials adults read, we believe they
provide a reasonable approximation of the word frequencies that the
children in our study would be exposed to in their academic subjects.
Bilingual researchers drew up a word list that included nouns,
verbs, and adjectives. We chose only Spanish–English cognates that
were ranked low in English frequency but generally high in Spanish
frequency and that had high transparency (i.e., had almost identical
spellings and the same or a very closely related meaning). From
Kucera and Francis (2005) and Francis and Kucera (1982), we
selected noncognates whose frequencies matched those of the cog-
nates. We did not include register in our criteria for choosing the
words, and the matched words were not always the same part of
speech.
Table 1 lists the English words chosen to appear on the CAT
together with their frequencies per million. The frequency of the
cognate and noncognate English words ranged from 1 to 8 (per mil-
lion), with a mean frequency of 3. On the other hand, the Spanish
498 Development of a cognate awareness measure

Table 1 List of cognates, noncognates, and easy words and their frequencies* for
the operational version of the CAT

Noncognates F English cognates F Spanish cognates F

undermine 8 accompany 8 acompañar 10


jest 1 adorn 1 adornar 12
tattered 5 anterior 5 anterior 99
rehearse 1 castigate 1 (castigar) castigo(a) 30
clutch 5 converse 5 (conversar) conversacion 138
gritty 1 curative 1 (curativo(a)) curar 6
feasibility 3 edifice 3 edificio 69
strife 6 epoch 6 época 227
drought 5 imitate 5 imitar 7
maladroit 1 (impede) impeded 5 impedir 20
haul 5 initiate 5 iniciar 22
hoist 1 jocose 1 jocoso(a) 2
snug 2 malevolent 2 malévolo(a) 1
allot 1 matrimonial 1 matrimonio 60
brittle 3 pallid 3 pálido(a) 26
drowsy 1 pensive 1 (pensativo(a)) pensar 159
trustworthy 3 profundity 3 profundidad 36
(leery) leering 4 obligated 4 obligado(a) 41
fiend 3 odious 3 odioso(a) 3
wily 2 terminus 2 terminar 65
flee 1 tranquil 2 tranquilo(a) 70
pun 1 valor 1 valor 107

Eight ‘Easy’ Words


construction 95 construcción 92
idea 195 idea 196
literature 133 literatura 114
modern 198 moderno/a 48
permit 77 permitir 30
poet 99 poeta 71
production 148 producción 139
simple 161 simple 81

*Frequencies are number of words/per million.


Sources:
English: Kucera, H. & Francis, W. N. Kucera and Francis Word Pool. Retrieved March 3,
2005, from http://memory.psych.upenn.edu/wordpools.php
Spanish: Davies, M. Corpus del Español. Retrieved March 3, 2005, from http://www.
corpusdelespanol.org/
Notes:
1) Davies (2005) has a corpus of 20 million words from twentieth-century mater-
ials, so the frequencies obtained for the Spanish words were first divided by 20 to
get the frequencies of the words per million.
2) For castigate, converse, curative, and pensive, an alternate form of Spanish
word was used instead for calculating frequency.
3) For Spanish adjectives, we added the male and female (gender) frequencies
(e.g., pálido and pálida).
Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 499

counterparts of the English cognates ranged from 6 to 227 and had a


mean frequency of 63. To add some variability and ensure that the
children would not top out of the test, three words with infrequent
Spanish cognates were also included: jocoso/a, malevolo/a, and
odioso/a (with frequencies of 2, 1, and 3 respectively). In the oper-
ational version of the test, we also included eight cognates with high
frequencies in both English and Spanish. Frequencies of these
English words ranged from 77 to 248 per million, and frequencies of
their Spanish cognates ranged from 30 to 196.
For each test word, four high-frequency English words or phrases
were provided as possible responses, only one of which was related
to the test word in meaning. No Spanish words appeared on the
instrument. Students were instructed to read each test word, think
about what it meant, and then choose the one option that they felt
was most closely related to the meaning of the test word.

II Pilot study
Before using the CAT in full-scale studies, we piloted it with 100
Spanish-speaking ELLs in order to gather preliminary information
about its reliability and validity. We also collected feedback on the
test from the children and their teachers.

1 Participants
The pilot study participants were fourth and fifth graders from four
schools in low-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking neighbor-
hoods in a large mid-Atlantic city in the USA. Table 2 provides
demographic information on the children.

2 Measure
The pilot version of the CAT had three practice items and 61 test
items (30 cognates and 31 noncognates). The following samples
indicate the format of the pilot test:
1. initiate a) clean b) balance c) begin d) gain
2. strife a) plane b) choice c) king d) fight
3. infirm a) honest b) afraid c) confused d) sick
During test administration, the researcher wrote the practice items on
the board and reviewed them with the children. The children were
then instructed to work on their own using their test booklets.
500 Development of a cognate awareness measure

Table 2 Student demographic information for pilot study

N %

Ethnicity
Latino/Hispanic 100 100%
Grade
Fourth (9 year olds) 69 69
Fifth (10 year olds) 31 31
Language spoken by child at home
Only Spanish 8 8
Mostly Spanish 5 5
Spanish and English 28 28
Mostly English 13 13
Only English 1 1
Missing 45 45
Language program in school
Spanish Dominant Transitional Bilingual 56 56
English Dominant 80–20 Bilingual 16 16
English Dominant Regular 28 28

3 Analysis
Analysis focused on evaluating the items in the pilot version of the
CAT in order to determine the final pool of items to be included in
the operational version. Following the definition of validity as ‘an
integrated evaluative judgment of the degree to which empirical evi-
dence and theoretical rationales support the adequacy and appropri-
ateness of inferences and actions based on test scores or other modes
of assessment’ (Messick, 1989, p. 13; italics in original), we exam-
ined two types of empirical evidence.
First, we looked at the set of all test items together, using the
Rasch model to determine whether the CAT was measuring a single
construct of vocabulary knowledge. Our assumption was that if all
the items fit the Rasch model, we could infer that both cognates and
noncognates were measuring a single construct related to English
vocabulary knowledge. Second, we examined the test’s construct
validity by investigating performance on the cognates and noncog-
nates separately.
We used WINSTEPS software (Linacre & Wright, 2000) to cali-
brate the difficulty of the items and the ability of test takers on a
common interval scale and to provide information about the test’s
properties, especially its reliability, scalability, and fit to the Rasch
model. We performed three separate calibrations. In the first, all 61
words were calibrated on a single logit scale. This calibration
Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 501

allowed us to determine the difficulty of all of the items, as well as


the children’s ability based on their performance on all 61 words.
With the difficulty of the items anchored at their original values,
a second and third calibration produced measures of the children’s
vocabulary ability with respect to the cognates and the noncognates
separately. In these separate calibrations, we found that the difficulty
values of the cognates and noncognates, anchored to the difficulty
value from the calibration of the entire test, were within the normal
range. Thus, the difficulty values of the items calibrated separately did
not vary much from their difficulty when calibrated together. The
range of displacement values for the cognates was !.05 to .04, and the
range for the noncognates was !.02 to .08. This finding also supports
the view that all 61 items were measuring one underlying construct.
Table 3 shows the means, standard deviations and ranges of the
scaled scores for cognates, noncognates, and all items in the pilot.
(Note: The table shows N " 92 because tests with all correct and no
correct answers were discarded following standard Rasch analysis
procedure. Rasch logit scores were scaled such that mean item diffi-
culty was 100 and the length of a logit was 20.)

4 Results
a Map of children and items: Figure 1 shows the Rasch map of the
pilot study children and the pilot test items on a single scale. The
children’s ability covers a range of 3.88 logits, which is wider than
the range of 2.62 logits for item difficulty. The map also shows an
even spread of cognates and noncognates, with no major gaps except
at the lower end.
The map shows that, in general, the items on the CAT were spread
evenly along the scale, but the mean difficulty for test items (marked
‘M’ by the item names) was well above the mean of the children’s

Table 3 Means, standard deviations and ranges of children’s scores on cognates,


noncognates and all words for pilot study*

Cognates (30 items) Noncognates (31 items) All words (61 items)

Mean 82.46 83.42 83.44


SD 14.18 12.45 10.20
Range 80.60 83.60 71.23
Min 41.20 32.40 44.14
Max 121.80 116.00 115.37

*Scaled scores, N " 92


502 Development of a cognate awareness measure

More Able Children Hard Items

LOGITS
1.5 +
|
|
| fiend-NC
|T
1 +
|
. | stodgy–NC wily–NC forlorn–NC brevity–C casualty–NC
| malevolent–C epoch–C leery–NC
|S calumny–C kosher–NC allot–NC quagmire–NC
| frenzied–NC undermine–NC
| discard–NC infirm–C
. T| flee–NC
. | brittle–NC anterior–C
| pithy–NC hoist–NC strife–NC pun–NC drought–NC
clutch–NC impede–C edifice–C
0 .# +M nocturnal–C curative–C 6.initiate–C
.# | detain–C augment–C terminus–C amicable–C
.# | obligated–C faze–NC jest–NC haul–NC maladroit–NC
snug–NC navigate–C imitate–C pallid–C valor–C
.# S| tattered–NC profundity–C pensive–C rehearse–NC
## | jocose–C tranquil–C gritty–NC feasibility–NC
###### | odious–C
.# |S
.# |
.####### | adorn–C castigate–C
.## M| trustworthy–NC
21 .##### +
.### |T drowsy–NC
.## | accompany–C
## | matrimonial–C
### S| converse–C
# |
.# |
. |
|
# |
!2 T+
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
. |
|
!3 +
. |
|
|
|
–3.5 +
Less Able Children Easy Items
Each ‘#’ is two persons and ‘.’ is one person.

Figure 1 Rasch map for pilot study


Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 503

abilities (marked ‘M’ by the #s). This finding suggested that the
items were very difficult for the children and that a few less chal-
lenging items should be added to expand the range of the test and
motivate the children. The separate analyses performed on the cog-
nates and the noncognates also showed that the spread of both chil-
dren and items was generally even along the scale; however, both
subtests were quite difficult for the children.

b Reliability: The Rasch reliability of the vocabulary measure based


on all 61 items was .70. Separately, the reliability for the cognate
measure was .63, and for the noncognate measure .50. The lower
reliability estimate for the noncognates may indicate that these items
did not allow the children’s abilities to be as well differentiated as the
cognate items.

c Analysis of fit to model: Fit of the items to the Rasch model was
examined through the infit and outfit mean square statistics.
Although Linacre (2007, p. 2) suggests that items with mean square
values of between. 5 and 1.5 are ‘productive of measurement,’ we
chose a more conservative approach, flagging as misfitting items
with mean square values greater than 1.3.
Our analysis indicated that three items in the pilot version of the
CAT were misfitting, 10 were problematic in terms of answer
options, and two were mischaracterized as noncognates. Likewise,
the children’s and the teachers’ feedback, as well as our observations
of the children, indicated that the test’s layout was difficult to follow.
Lastly, the teachers recommended clearer test instructions.
Based on the item analyses conducted in the pilot study, the fol-
lowing revisions were made to the CAT:
• Three misfitting items, ten items which had problematic options,
and two items that we erroneously classified as noncognates
(discard and frenzied) and their two cognate counterparts (aug-
ment and detain) were deleted from the original 61 words.
• For clarity, the wording of the responses for three items was
changed.
• Eight new cognate words with high frequencies in both English
and Spanish were added to the test: construction, idea, simple,
literature, modern, poet, production, and permit. These less chal-
lenging words, randomly inserted, were included to improve the
children’s motivation to complete the entire test.
• The instructions and the test layout were modified to make the
test more user-friendly.
504 Development of a cognate awareness measure

III Study 1: Operational version of the CAT, Year 1


The purpose of Study 1 was to obtain information about the reliabil-
ity and fit of the CAT to the Rasch model, and to determine the test’s
validity after revisions were made based on the pilot study. Analysis
of the operational CAT focused on investigating the construct valid-
ity of the test through the types of calibrations used in the pilot study
and through assessment of the relationship between students’ per-
formance on the CAT (for both cognates and noncognates) and their
performance on the Picture Vocabulary subtest of the Woodcock
Language Proficiency Battery-Revised (WLPB-R/PV) (Woodcock,
1991a, 1991b; Woodcock & Muñoz-Sandoval, 1995).

1 Participants
Participants in the study were 173 Spanish-speaking ELLs who were
participants in the larger transfer study. The students were fourth
graders in Success for All (SFA) reading programs in three urban
schools in predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhoods in three
states in the USA. Some were being instructed only in English by
fourth grade, while others were still receiving some instruction in
Spanish. The first section of Table 4 presents demographic informa-
tion on the children.

2 Measures
The operationalized version of the CAT consisted of 52 items: 22 cog-
nates and 22 noncognates that were scored, and eight less challenging
items that were added as a result of the pilot study (see Table 1).
Figure 2 illustrates the new test format.
The WLPB-R/PV was used to measure the children’s English and
Spanish vocabulary knowledge. In the WLPB-R/PV, a child sees a
picture and is asked to name the object(s) or action(s) in the picture.
The WLPB-R is one of very few vocabulary tests that have both
English and Spanish versions.

3 Data analysis and results


a Scalability: As in the pilot study, three separate calibrations were
performed. The first included all 52 test items. The second and third
calibrations were performed on the cognates and noncognates sep-
arately, while anchoring their measures on the first calibration. The
Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 505

Table 4 Student demographic information for Study 1 (fourth graders) and Study
2 (fifth graders)

Study 1: Year 1 with fourth graders N %

Ethnicity: Latino/Hispanic 173 100%


Language spoken by child at home
Spanish 132 76.3
English 37 21.4
Missing 4 2.3
Language instruction in school
Still instructed in Spanish 75 43.4
Fully instructed in English 85 49.1
Missing 13 7.5

Study 2: Year 2 with fifth graders N %

Ethnicity: Latino/Hispanic 155 100%


Language spoken by child at home
Spanish 111 71.6
English 33 21.3
Missing 11 7.1
Language instruction in school
Still instructed in Spanish 62 40.0
Fully instructed in English 82 52.9
Missing 11 7.1

“For each item, you will read the bolded word and think about what it
means. After you have thought about the bolded word and what it means, you
are supposed to pick the one word that is most closely related to the meaning
of the bolded word.”

Cognate Noncognate
converse jest
O speak with someone O defend
O fight with someone O bend
O include someone O joke
O leave out someone O observe

Figure 2 Format and sample questions from operationalized CAT

eight less challenging items were excluded from the second and
third calibration. The displacement values were within the normal
range: !.11 to .10 for cognates and !.02 to .02 for noncognates.
The first section of Table 5 shows the means, standard deviations
and ranges of the fourth graders’ scaled scores for cognates, noncog-
nates and the entire test. (Note: The table shows N " 170 because
tests with all correct answers and no correct answers were discarded
following standard Rasch analysis procedure.)
506 Development of a cognate awareness measure

Table 5 Means, standard deviations and ranges of cognates, noncognates and all
words (Year 1 [fourth graders] and Year 2 [fifth graders])*

Year 1 (Fourth graders)

Cognates (22 items) Noncognates (22 items) All words (52 items)

Mean 93.89 94.59 94.62


SD 18.08 13.30 12.23
Range 100.00 70.80 59.60
Min 36.60 55.20 63.80
Max 136.60 126.00 123.40

*Scaled scores, N ! 170.

Year 2 (Fifth graders)

Cognates (22 items) Noncognates (22 items) All words (52 items)

Mean 102.09 98.89 101.03


SD 20.63 17.08 14.88
Range 135.20 99.60 75.00
Min 61.00 39.20 60.60
Max 196.20 138.80 135.60

*Scaled scores, N ! 155.

b Map of children and items: Figure 3 shows the Rasch map for the
operational CAT, with children and items on a single scale. The map
shows an even spread of cognates and noncognates, similar to the
pilot results. The map also shows that the eight less challenging
words were all below the mean difficulty for the items as a whole.
The difference between mean item difficulty and mean student abil-
ity was reduced from one logit in the pilot to just half a logit in the
first study, demonstrating that the test had become ‘easier’.
The children’s ability range of 2.98 logits was narrower than the
range of 3.60 logits for item difficulty. This implies that the test can
be used for children with a wider range of abilities than this fourth
grade group. The mean difficulty of the items was also slightly higher
than the mean ability of the children, indicating that some items were
still difficult for some fourth graders, but that such items would be
appropriate for older children or fourth graders with higher abilities.
This finding was important since the CAT was intended to be used
with both fourth and fifth graders.
c Reliability: The estimated reliability was a moderate .70 for the
entire test and .65 for the cognates, about the same as on the pilot.
Reliability for the noncognates was .37, a decrease from the pilot.
Since reliability is influenced by the distribution of ability in the group
Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 507

More Able Children Hard Items


LOGITS
2 +
|
|T
|
|
|
| epoch–C
| fiend–NC
| malevolent–C undermine–NC
| wily–NC curative–C
XX |
XXX |
1 X +
T|S maladroit–NC anterior–C
XX | impede–C
X | pun–NC jest–NC allot–NC pallid–C initiate–C
XX | hoist–NC
XXXX | jocose–C strife–NC
XXXXX | drought–NC
XXXXXXXXX | haul–NC edifice–C
XXXXX S| leery–NC
XX | brittle–NC feasibility–NC valor–C
XXXXXXXXX | pensive–C
XXXXXXXXX | flee–NC terminus–C
0 XXXXXXXX +M odious–C
XXXXXXXXXXXX | profundity–C snug–NC
XXXXXXX | gritty–NC clutch–NC adorn–C
XXXXXX M|
XXXXXXXXXX | castigate–C permit–U
XXXXXX | production–U rehearse–NC
XXXXXXXX | obligated–C
X | modern–U tranquil–C
XXXXXXXXXXX | tattered–NC
XXXXXXXXX |
XXXXXXXXX | converse–C imitate–C
XXXXXX S|S
!1 XXX +
XXXXX | poet–U literature–U
XXXXXX | accompany–C trustworthy–NC matrimonial–C
XXX |
X |
XXXX | drowsy–NC
T|
|
|
|
X |T
| simple–U
!2 + idea–U
|
| construction–U
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
!3 +
Less Able Children Easy Items

Each ‘X’ is one person.

Figure 3 Rasch map for Study 1 (operational version


with fourth graders)
508 Development of a cognate awareness measure

taking an assessment, the decrease in reliability of the noncognates


could be explained by the fact that only fourth graders were tested in
Study 1, whereas both fourth and fifth graders were tested in the pilot.
Also, with the exception of the eight less challenging words, the items
were in a restricted range, that is, they were all very low frequency
words. Consequently, we considered these reliabilities acceptable.

d Analysis of fit to model: Using the same conservative criteria as


in the pilot, we found that 96% of the items in the total test calibra-
tion fit the Rasch model; only two items (fiend and allot) were mis-
fitting. In the noncognate calibration, the same two items were found
to be misfitting, while none of the cognates was misfitting. Further
analysis showed that the two misfitting words were among the most
difficult words on the test. Overall, then, all three calibrations showed
an acceptable fit of the data to the Rasch model.

e Construct validity: Because the CAT was only one measure


among many given to students in the larger study, it was not possible
to interview the children to discover what strategies they used to
answer the test items. However, we wanted to see if there was any
evidence that students might be drawing on their cognate knowledge
in taking the CAT. We hypothesized that knowledge of Spanish
vocabulary would help students respond correctly to cognate items
but not to noncognate items.
To investigate the validity of the CAT as a measure of cognate aware-
ness, we assessed the relationship between students’ performance on the
CAT and their performance on the WLPB-R/PV. We found a moder-
ate relationship between cognate performance and the Spanish WLPB-
R/PV for fourth graders (r! .50, N ! 114, p ".01). However, there
was no correlation between cognate performance–and the English
WLPB-R/PV (r ! #.13, N ! 114, p $ .01). On the other hand, English
WLPB-R/PV was moderately related to performance on noncognates
(r ! .41, N ! 114, p ".01), but Spanish WLPB-R/PV was not
(r ! #.14, N ! 114, p ".01). These results provided evidence that
knowledge of Spanish played a role in children’s performance on CAT
cognate items.
For additional analyses, we divided the children into four groups
using WLPB-R scores in Spanish and English (see Tables 7 and 9):

• Low Spanish, Low English (LSLE)


• Low Spanish, High English (LSHE)
• High Spanish, Low English (HSLE)
• High Spanish, High English (HSHE)
Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 509

The cut-off score used for the WLPB-R/PV was 80. That is,
a child with a standard score lower than 80 on the WLPB-R/PV
measure was categorized as low for that language, whereas a child
with a standard score equal to or greater than 80 was categorized as
high. The cut-off score was chosen based on a scatter plot in order to
have a meaningful number of students in each of the four quadrants.
(Note: for WLPB-R/PV, the mean obtained for the norming sample
of fourth graders was 100 and the standard deviation was 15. Thus,
our cut-off score is one and a third standard deviation points lower
than the mean of a typical monolingual fourth grader.)
To compare children’s cognate and noncognate vocabulary meas-
ures on the CAT within each study, and from one study to the next, the
logit measures were converted to scaled scores with a mean of 100 and
20 units to a logit. We then compared the mean performance on the
cognate and noncognate items by the four groups. We hypothesized
that if the CAT was tapping into the construct of cognate awareness,
then for cognates, knowledge of Spanish vocabulary would play an
important role, but not necessarily knowledge of English vocabulary.
We further hypothesized that for noncognates, the opposite would be
true: knowledge of English vocabulary would play an important role,
but not necessarily knowledge of Spanish vocabulary.
Table 6 shows the means and standard deviations of each sub-
group’s scores on cognates and noncognates.
To check for statistical differences between the mean perform-
ances of the four subgroups on the cognates, we conducted a
nonparametric Kruskal Wallis test for independent samples because
the number of children in each subgroup was unequal. The overall
Kruskal Wallis chi square for cognates was significant (!2 (3) "
25.82, p # .01). Results of individual tests are presented in Table 7.
The upper portion of the table shows that the subgroups with high
Spanish consistently outperformed the subgroups with low Spanish
on cognates, thus demonstrating their cognate vocabulary knowl-
edge, whereas subgroups with high English did not necessarily
perform statistically significantly better than subgroups with low
English.
The lower section of Table 7 shows the mean and standard devi-
ations of the four subgroups scores on the noncognates. The overall
Kruskal Wallis chi square was again significant (!2 (3) " 15.69,
p # .01). The table shows that subgroups with high English consis-
tently outperformed subgroups with low English on noncognates.
Furthermore, for both cognates and noncognates, the high Spanish,
high English subgroup consistently performed better than other
510 Development of a cognate awareness measure

Table 6 Means and standard deviations of subgroups of fourth graders on cog-


nates and noncognates (Study 1)

Means and standard deviations of fourth graders’ scaled scores on cognates

Low Spanish High Spanish


(Picture vocabulary ! 80) (Picture vocabulary " 80)

High English M # 87.90 (N # 29) M # 107.91 (N # 18)


(Picture Vocabulary " 80) SD #12.87 SD # 15.98
Low English M # 84.85 (N # 12) M # 100.65 (N # 55)
(Picture Vocabulary!80) SD #13.22 SD # 17.62
Means and standard deviations of fourth graders’ scaled scores on noncognates

Low Spanish High Spanish


Picture vocabulary ! 80) (Picture vocabulary " 80)

High English M # 96.26 (N # 29) M # 102.16 (N # 18)


(Picture vocabulary "80) SD # 10.23 SD # 14.29
Low English M # 93.18 (N # 12) M # 88.72 (N # 55)
(Picture vocabulary!80) SD # 11.77 SD # 12.34

Table 7 Means and Kruskal Wallis chi square for paired subgroups (Study 1, fourth
graders)

Paired Subgroups (N) Mean Ranks Kruskal Wallis chi-square

Cognates
High Spanish vs. Low Spanish subgroups
HSHE (18) vs. LSHE (29) 33.50 18.10 $2 (1) # 14.08 , p ! .01
HSHE (18) vs. LSLE (12) 19.97 8.79 $2 (1) # 11.69, p ! .01
HSLE (55) vs. LSHE (29) 49.45 29.31 $2 (1) # 13.04, p ! .01
HSLE (55) vs. LSLE (12) 37.37 18.54 $2 (1) # 9.27, p ! .01
High Spanish vs. High Spanish subgroup
HSHE (18) vs. HSLE (55) 43.67 34.82 $2 (1) # 2.38, NS
Low Spanish vs. Low Spanish subgroup
LSHE (29) vs. LSLE (12) 21.97 18.67 $2 (1) # .65, NS

Noncognates
High English vs. Low English subgroups
HSHE (18) vs. LSLE (12) 17.72 12.17 $2 (1) # 2.89, NS
LSHE (29) vs. HSLE (55) 52.97 36.98 $2 (1) # 8.28, p ! .01
HSHE (18) vs. HSLE (55) 51.31 32.32 $2 (1) # 11.02, p ! .01
LSHE (29) vs. LSLE (12) 22.29 17.88 $2 (1) # 1.17, NS
High English vs. High English subgroup
HSHE (18) vs. LSHE (29) 27.47 21.84 $2 (1) # 1.89, NS
Low English vs. Low English subgroup
HSLE (55) vs. LSLE (12) 32.89 39.08 $2 (1) # 1.01, NS
Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 511

subgroups, and this difference was usually (but not always) statisti-
cally significant. This finding confirms the CAT as a measure of
vocabulary knowledge.
In summary, our results consistently show that high Spanish
vocabulary knowledge, as measured by the WLPB-R/PV, was help-
ful in predicting high vocabulary scores on the CAT’s cognate items,
but high English knowledge was not. On the other hand, high English
vocabulary knowledge, as measured by the WLPB-R/PV, was a good
predictor of high vocabulary scores on noncognate items, whereas
high Spanish vocabulary knowledge was not. These findings provide
support for the claim that cognate items on the CAT appear to tap
into some level of cognate awareness for students with high Spanish
vocabulary knowledge. Lastly, children with high scores on both the
Spanish and English WLPB-R/PV consistently performed at the high-
est levels on both cognates and noncognates, providing support for the
CAT as a vocabulary measure.

IV Study 2: Operational version of the CAT, year 2


Because the larger transfer study was longitudinal, we were able to
investigate the stability of the CAT across two testing occasions. One
year after the first administration of the operational CAT, we admin-
istered it again to the same cohort of children, now in fifth grade.
Due to attrition, only 155 children participated. The second section
of Table 4 provides background information on these children. In
Study 2, we used the same measures (CAT and WLPB-R/PV) and
conducted the same analyses as in Study 1.

1 Results
a Scalability: Twelve items (seven cognates and five noncognates)
showed noticeable displacement when their difficulty values were
anchored to the item difficulty values from the first calibration. The
remaining 32 items did not show any major displacements.
The second section of Table 5 shows the means, standard devi-
ations and ranges of the fifth graders’ scaled scores for cognates,
noncognates and the entire test. Table 5 clearly indicates that the
children’s knowledge of English vocabulary had increased, particu-
larly their cognate scores (from 93.89 as fourth graders to 102.09 as
fifth graders).
512 Development of a cognate awareness measure

More Able Children Hard Items


LOGITS
2 +
|
X |
|
|
XX T| anterior–C wily–NC fiend–NC
XXX | malevolent–C
| curative–C
X | jest–NC
XX | epoch–C undermine–NC
|
XXX | pun–NC allot–NC
1 XXXXXX +S leery–NC
XXXXXX | jocose–C maladroit–NC
XXX S| valor–C
XXX |
XXXXXXXXX |
XXXX | hoist–NC terminus–C
XXXXXXX | impede–C initiate–C edifice–C
XXXXXX |
XXXXXXX | brittle–NC feasibility–NC pallid–C
XXXXXXXXX | strife–NC
| haul–NC gritty–NC snug–NC adorn–C
XXXXXXXX M| drought–NC pensive–C
0 XXXXXXX +M profundity–C clutch–NC
XXXXXXXXX | flee–NC
XXXXXXXXXX | odious–C
XXX | castigate–C
XXXXXXXX | tattered–NC
XXXX | obligated–C
| rehearse–NC permit–U
XXX |
XXXXXX | tranquil–C
XXXXX S| converse–C
XX | production–U
| imitate–C
!1 XX +S
XX |
X |
XXXX | drowsy–NC
XXXX | modern–U matrimonial–C literature–U
| trustworthy–NC
T|
X |
X |
X | poet–U
| accompany–C
| construction–U
!2 + idea–U
XX |T
| simple–U
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
!3 +
Less Able Children Easy Items

Each ‘X’ is one person.

Figure 4 Rasch map for Study 2 (operational version with fifth graders)
Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 513

b Map of children and items: Figure 4 shows the Rasch map for
the CAT administered to the fifth graders. Unlike Study 1, in which the
mean difficulty of the items was higher than the mean ability of thechil-
dren, in this study the mean examinee ability was slightly above the
mean item difficulty. Likewise, the range of 3.75 logits for the ability
scores is about the same as the range of 3.60 logits for the item dif-
ficulty scores. This finding indicates that the items in the operational
version of the CAT are also appropriate for these fifth graders. It like-
wise indicates that the average vocabulary ability of the children has
improved from fourth to fifth grade.

c Reliability: The reliability estimates improved noticeably from


the pilot and Year 1 studies, to .80 for the measure based on all 52
items, .70 based on the cognates, and .62 based on the noncognates.
Since reliability is a function of the heterogeneity of the sample
tested, this increase is not surprising, as the spread of student ability
was wider among the children as fifth graders (3.75 on the logit
scale) than as fourth graders (2.98 on the logit scale). Overall, these
findings indicate that the CAT is appropriate for children with abil-
ities at the fifth-grade level. Likewise, the CAT’s moderate to high
internal reliabilities on two different testing occasions provide some
indication of its stability.

d Analysis of fit to model: In the total test calibration, 90.4% of the


items fit the Rasch model; five out of 52 (jest, malevolent, undermine,
curative, and fiend) were misfitting. For the cognate calibration, three
words were misfitting (anterior, curative, and malevolent), and for the
noncognate calibration, three words were also misfitting (jest, under-
mine, and pun). Further analysis showed that, as in Study 1, the mis-
fitting items were among the most difficult words on the test. Overall,
all three calibrations showed an acceptable fit to the Rasch model.

e Construct validity: As in Study 1, we divided the children into four


groups according to their scores on the WLPB-R/PV: LSLE, LSHE,
HSLE, and HSHE. This time the cut-off score used was 85. Table 8
shows the means and standard deviations of each subgroup’s scores
on cognates and noncognates.
As in Study 1, high Spanish vocabulary knowledge was related to
high scores on the CAT cognates, but not on the noncognates. High
English vocabulary knowledge was related to stronger performance
on the noncognates.
The overall Kruskal Wallis chi square for CAT cognate scores
remained significant (!2 (3) " 21.37, p # .01). Moreover, as the
514 Development of a cognate awareness measure

Table 8 Means and standard deviations of subgroups of fifth graders on cognates


and noncognates (Study 2)

Means and standard deviations of fifth graders’ scaled scores on cognates

Low Spanish High Spanish


(Picture vocabulary (Picture vocabulary
#85) %85)

High English M " 90.48 (N " 24) M " 115.42 (N " 28)
(Picture Vocabulary %85) SD " 13.98 SD " 17.50
Low English M " 98.99 (N " 26) M " 105.77 (N " 54)
(Picture Vocabulary #85) SD " 17.71 SD " 24.36
Means and standard deviations of fifth graders’ scaled scores on noncognates

Low Spanish High Spanish


(Picture vocabulary (Picture vocabulary
#85) %85)

High English M " 99.47 (N " 24) M " 103.90 (N " 28)
(Picture Vocabulary %85) SD " 18.86 SD " 14.45
Low English M " 93.38 (N " 26) M " 93.17 (N " 54)
(Picture Vocabulary #85) SD " 19.50 SD " 13.25

upper portion of Table 9 shows, when measured by the cognates, the


subgroups with high Spanish tended to outscore the subgroups with
low Spanish, whereas subgroups with high English did not perform
significantly better than subgroups with low English.
The overall Kruskal Wallis chi square for noncognate CAT scores
was also significant (!2 (3) " 9.13, p # .01). The lower section of
Table 9 shows that the subgroups with high English consistently
outscored the subgroups with low English on noncognates, whereas
groups with high Spanish did not always perform significantly bet-
ter than subgroups with low Spanish on these words.
As in Study 1, the high Spanish and high English subgroup con-
sistently performed better than the other subgroups, although this
difference was not always statistically significant.
Finally, as in Study 1, the correlation between CAT cognate
vocabulary and the Spanish WLPB-R/PV was moderate (r " .38,
N " 132, p # .01). Again, there was no correlation between CAT
cognate vocabulary knowledge and English WLPB-R/PV (r" $.01,
N " 132, p # .01). However, English vocabulary knowledge as
measured by the English WLPB-R/PV was moderately related to CAT
noncognate vocabulary (r" .37, N " 132, p # .01), while Spanish
Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 515

Table 9 Means and Kruskal Wallis chi-square for paired subgroups (Study 2, fifth
graders)

Paired Subgroups (N) Mean Ranks Kruskal Wallis chi-square

Cognates
High Spanish vs. Low Spanish subgroups
HSHE (28) vs. LSHE (24) 35.55 15.94 $2 (1) ! 21.74, p % .01
HSHE (28) vs. LSLE (26) 33.88 20.63 $2 (1) ! 9.62, p % .01
HSLE (54) vs. LSHE (24) 43.87 29.67 $2 (1) ! 6.56, p % .01
HSLE (54) vs. LSLE (26) 42.28 36.81 $2 (1) ! .98, NS
High Spanish vs. High Spanish subgroup
HSHE (28) vs. HSLE (54) 49.71 37.24 $2 (1) ! 5.07, NS
Low Spanish vs. Low Spanish subgroup
LSHE (24)vs. LSLE (26) 21.77 28.94 $2 (1) ! 3.06, NS

Noncognates
High English vs. Low English subgroups
HSHE (28) vs. LSLE (26) 31.27 23.44 $2 (1) ! 3.36, NS
LSHE (24) vs. HSLE (54) 44.58 37.24 $2 (1) ! 1.76, NS
HSHE (28) vs. HSLE (54) 52.50 35.80 $2 (1) ! 9.13, p % .01
LSHE (24) vs. LSLE (26) 26.63 24.46 $2 (1) ! .28, NS
High English vs. High English subgroup
HSHE (28) vs. LSHE (24) 28.23 24.48 $2 (1) ! .80, NS
Low English vs. Low English subgroup
HSLE (54) vs. LSLE (26) 38.66 44.33 $2 (1) ! 1.05, NS

vocabulary as measured by the Spanish WLPB-R/PV was not


(r ! ".05, N ! 132, p # .01).

V Discussion
The purpose of this study was to provide empirical evidence (Messick,
1989) for the claim that scores on the cognate subtest of the CAT are
sensitive to awareness of cognates in Spanish-speaking ELL children
and that scores on the test as a whole are related to first and second
vocabulary knowledge. Our findings apparently demonstrate this.
The reliability of both the cognate subtest and the entire test improved
from the pilot to the operational version, and the internal reliabilities
of the cognate subtest and the entire test were consistent on two test-
ing occasions. The internal reliability of the noncognate subtest also
improved from one testing occasion to the next.
In comparing the children’s scores on the cognate and noncognate
subtests, we found that the CAT cognate items appear to tap into a
construct of cognate awareness. Higher scores on the cognate items
516 Development of a cognate awareness measure

were consistently related to higher scores on the Spanish WLPB-


R/PV but not to higher scores on the English WLPB-R/PV, whereas
higher scores on the noncognate items were consistently related to
higher scores on the English WLPB-R/PV but not to higher scores
on the Spanish WLPB-R/PV. Also, the results indicate that, aside
from the two distinct subtests, there appears to be a general vocabu-
lary knowledge involved in doing well on the CAT, because children
who had the highest scores on both the English and Spanish WLPB-
R/PV performed best on both CAT subtests.
Although the CAT appears to be sensitive to the ability of Spanish-
speaking children to use knowledge of Spanish words to discern the
meaning of their English cognates, researchers and educators need to
be cognizant of its limitations. Because we used word frequencies
for adults rather than children, other researchers may want to
develop the CAT further by using frequencies for children (e.g.,
Zeno, Ivens, Millard & Duvvuri, 1995, for English). Perhaps when
word frequencies for children are used, the correlations between the
CAT and the WLPB-R/PV, currently only moderate, may increase.
At any rate, our results have important theoretical, research, and
pedagogical implications. Theoretically, our findings provide some
support for positive cross-linguistic transfer of cognate knowledge
for Spanish-speaking ELLs with sufficient L1 vocabulary know-
ledge, but not necessarily for those with insufficient L1 vocabulary
knowledge. This finding is consistent with Cummins’ (1979) theory
that ELL children first need to reach a threshold or minimum profi-
ciency in their L1 for it to transfer to their L2.
Research-wise, the CAT is potentially useful for investigation of the
development of cognate knowledge in ELLs. Future studies might
investigate exactly what levels of Spanish vocabulary knowledge chil-
dren need before that knowledge can help them with English word
meanings, and whether children trained on one set of cognates could
generalize to unlearned ones. Likewise, research could determine
whether certain kinds of words are more susceptible to transfer, possi-
bly by developing a scale of the distance between English and Spanish
words based on orthography, morphology, and semantics. Finally,
using think-alouds (as in the work of Jiménez et al., 1996) with the
CAT would help elucidate how high scorers on the cognate items deter-
mine whether a word is a cognate. The think-aloud could query stu-
dents on what aspects (phonological, orthographic, morphological,
semantic, or a combination of these) they think they focus on to deci-
pher a new English word; and the roles they think L1 and L2 profi-
ciency play in their ability to use cognate knowledge.
Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 517

Pedagogically, the CAT could be useful for assessing the effecti-


veness of interventions designed to build Spanish-speaking
children’s English vocabulary. Because English and Spanish share
such a large number of cognates, interventions that build cognate
awareness may be promising for this purpose. However, because of
the CAT’s limitations mentioned above, its lower reliability when
compared to standardized tests, and its primary goal of assessing
cognate awareness rather than depth of vocabulary knowledge, edu-
cators should use the CAT concurrently with other vocabulary meas-
ures to provide a more accurate picture of improvements in their
students’ overall vocabulary knowledge. The use of reliable and
valid assessments will be crucial to assess the effectiveness of such
interventions. The CAT takes the first step in providing such an
assessment.

Acknowledgements
The Transfer of reading skills in bilingual children study was funded
by Grant No. 5-P01-HD39530 from the National Institute for Child
Health and Human Development and the Institute of Education
Sciences of the US Department of Education to the Center for Applied
Linguistics (CAL). We thank the CAL staff and the Language Testing
reviewers for their helpful comments.

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