Woodcock-Johnson® III NU Tests of Achievement

Type: Test of Achievement

Purpose: Measures academic achievement.
Ages: 2 to 90+ years
Times: Varies, about 5 minutes per test
Scoring: The WJIII NU Compuscore and Profiles Program
®

Authors: Program quickly converts raw scores to derived

Richard W. Woodcock,
Kevin S. McGrew, and scores to meet all basic scoring and reporting
Nancy Mather needs. The Woodcock Interpretation and
Instructional Interventions Program (WIIIP ) is ™ ™

an expert system for interpreting test results that

expands on the benefits of Compuscore by
providing direct links between assessment results
and evidence-based interventions.
Restriction Medium; Examiner Qualifications
Level:
Product Details > Overview | Administration | Technical Qualities | Resources

Details

Overview

The WJ III NU Tests of Achievement has two parallel forms (A and B) that are divided into two batteries—Standard

and Extended. The Standard Battery includes tests 1 through 12 that provide a broad set of scores. The 10 tests in

the Extended Battery provide more in-depth diagnostic information on specific academic strengths and weaknesses.

Examiners can administer the Standard Battery either alone or with the Extended Battery.

Practitioners use the WJ III NU Tests of Achievement to help assess students for learning disabilities and to

determine if they need special services. IDEA 2004 requires the use of a variety of assessment tools and strategies to

gather relevant, functional, developmental, and academic information about the student. The WJ III NU Tests of

Achievement include tests and clusters that directly parallel those outlined by IDEA and provide sound procedures for

determining learning variances between abilities and achievement.

 IDEA Area WJ III NU Cluster / Test

Oral Expression Oral Expression

Listening Comprehension Listening Comprehension
Written Expression Written Expression
Basic Reading Skills Basic Reading Skills
Reading Comprehension Reading Comprehension
Reading Fluency Reading Fluency
Mathematics Calculation Math Calculation Skills
Mathematics Reasoning Math Reasoning

The WJ III NU Tests of Achievement includes:

 seven new tests

 eight new clusters

 four oral language tests

 Expanded broad achievement clusters with three tests to measure basic skills, fluency, and application

 A revised procedure for evaluating intra-achievement discrepancies that now include oral language

 Expanded reading tests containing more items to measure early reading performance

 WJ III NU Audio is available Separately on CD

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Administration

Administration time varies, about 5 minutes per test. Achievement Standard 11 tests takes about 55–65 minutes

long.

Professionals can use the WJ III NU to:

 Diagnose learning disabilities

 Determine learning variations

 Plan educational programs

 Plan individual programs

  Assess growth

 Provide psychometric training

 Provide guidance in educational and clinical settings

 Conduct research

Practitioners now can get interpretive information from 19 test cluster scores to help measure performance levels,

determine educational progress, and identify individual strengths and weaknesses. The Standard Battery provides 10

cluster scores. The Extended Battery provides nine additional cluster scores (see chart).

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Technical Qualities

Validity

A test's validity depends on two factors: 1) how closely its norming sample represents the population to which the

test results will be compared, and 2) how carefully the data were gathered from that sample. The original WJ III

sample was selected to represent, within practical limits, the U.S. population from ages 24 months to 90+ years.

Normative data for the test were gathered from 8,818 subjects in over 100 geographically diverse communities in the

United States. Individuals were randomly selected within the stratified sampling design that controlled for 10 specific

community and individual variables and 13 socioeconomic status variables. The sample consisted of 1,143 preschool

subjects; 4,784 kindergarten to twelfth-grade subjects; 1,165 college and university subjects; and 1,843 adult

subjects.

The WJ III NU uses continuous-year norms to yield normative data at 10 points in each grade. It provides age-based

norms by month from ages 24 months to 19 years and by year from ages 2 to 90+ years. And it provides grade-

based norms for kindergarten through 12th grade, 2-year college, and 4-year college, including graduate school.

The WJ III NU is a highly accurate and valid diagnostic system because the two batteries were co-normed, which

means that the normative data are based on a single sample. When tests are co-normed, examiners can discover

learning differences with few errors.

Reliability

Most of the WJ III NU tests show strong reliabilities of .80 or higher; several are .90 or higher. The WJ III NU

interpretive plan is based on cluster interpretation. The WJ III NU clusters show strong reliabilities, most at .90 or

higher. The reliability characteristics of the WJ III NU meet or exceed basic standards for both individual placement

and programming decisions.

Discrepancies

The WJ III NU is especially useful for identifying and documenting ability/achievement discrepancies and intra-ability

variation. The ability/achievement variation procedure is the most commonly used method of evaluating an

individual's eligibility for special programs. Professionals can obtain ability/achievement variations by administering

both the WJ III NU Tests of Cognitive Abilities and the WJ III NU Tests of Achievement. The WJ III NU has an

advantage over other tests because it provides three types of ability/achievement variation procedures - general

intellectual ability to achievement, predicted achievement-to-achievement, and oral language to achievement.

The oral language to achievement discrepancy procedure is a measure offered only in the WJ III NU. Professionals

can calculate an ability/achievement discrepancy using just the achievement battery. Because limited oral language

can have a negative impact on test performance, it is important to consider a subject's oral language skills when

interpreting test results. The WJ III NU moved the oral language tests from the cognitive battery to the achievement

battery, so the Oral Language-Extended cluster can now be used as the "ability" score and compared to a subject's

achievement score. This measure is particularly useful for reading and other oral language professionals.

The WJ III NU also provides intra-ability variations, which include intra-achievement discrepancies, intra-cognitive

discrepancies, and intra-individual variations. Information gathered from intra-ability variations helps professionals to

determine an individual's strengths and weaknesses, diagnose and document language and learning disabilities, and

make intervention plans.

The intra-individual variation procedure has several advantages over traditional aptitude/achievement discrepancy

procedures. It provides a more comprehensive evaluation because examiners can analyze a variety of scores across

cognitive and achievement clusters. The intra-achievement variation procedure examines the difference between an

individual's achievement score in a particular area with a prediction estimated based on an average of all other

achievement areas to help professionals to identify learning disabilities, pinpoint specific problems, and choose the
most appropriate intervention for an individual. The procedure is also particularly useful for identifying learning

disabilities early, before a child fails in school.

Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is one of the best predictors of early reading acquisition—better than IQ, vocabulary, or

listening comprehension; as such, it is an important predictor of educational achievement. Deficits in this area are a

major cause of severe reading problems.

Phonological awareness is the ability to focus on the sound structure of language apart from its meaning. To learn to

read and spell, we must attend to the relationship between the sounds (phonemes) and the letters (graphemes) of

language. This knowledge of phoneme-grapheme, or sound-symbol, relationships is a key to decoding and encoding

written language.

There are several types of phonological awareness, including word awareness, syllable awareness, rhyme awareness,

and phonemic awareness. The WJ III NU contains five tests that measure different aspects of phonological

awareness. In fact, the WJ III NU Tests of Cognitive Abilities is the only major intelligence test that measures

auditory processing and phonemic awareness. The cognitive battery contains Sound Blending, which requires a

subject to synthesize speech sounds to form a word, and Incomplete Words, which requires a subject to analyze a

word with missing phonemes and identify the complete word. In the WJ III NU Tests of Achievement, three tests

measure aspects of phonological awareness. Examiners can use Word Attack and Spelling of Sounds to assess a

subject's phoneme/grapheme knowledge and determine if the subject can apply both phonological and

orthographical knowledge to identify and spell words. And if further analysis is needed, examiners can use Sound

Awareness to measure a subject's ability to rhyme words and manipulate phonemes.

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Books

Essentials of WJ III Cognitive Abilities Assessment

Richard W. Woodcock, Fredrick A. Schrank, 2001

This book will provide professionals with state-of-the-art interpretive guidelines to the cognitive abilities portion of
the newly revised Woodcock-Johnson III. Written in an easy-to-read format, it is ideal for anyone who wants to

better administer, interpret, and understand the WJ III.

Essentials of WJ III Tests of Achievement Assessment

Richard W. Woodcock, Nancy Mather, Barbara Wendling, 2001

Complementing the Essentials of WJ III Cognitive Abilities Assessment, this volume provides a quick reference to

information on the administration, scoring, and interpretation of the newly revised WJ III Tests of Achievement.

Woodcock-Johnson III Reports, Recommendations, and Strategies

Nancy Mather, Lynne Jaffe, 2001

This volume will help Woodcock-Johnson III examiners to prepare useful and descriptive psychoeducational reports

and to help educational specialists convert psychoeducational recommendations into measurable goals and objectives

for monitoring students' achievement and abilities. The book includes numerous examples of effective diagnostic

reports as well as summaries of methods and techniques for implementing recommendations successfully.