An Instruction Manipulation of a Set for Variability Task

In this study, we conducted an instructional manipulation of a reading-related task called the set for variability (SFV). This task measures phonological awareness and the degree to which students automatically access printed word forms by having them correct audibly mispronounced words. We hypothesized that children who received instructions that provided a reading context to the mispronunciations would perform better than the children who received instructions not related to reading. We also conducted an exploratory items analysis to see if performance would differ as a function of familiarity (operationalized as word frequency). Participants (n=34) were children who attend specialized schools for students with reading disabilities. They completed a battery of reading-related tasks, including SFV, administered in-person by researchers. About half of the students received the reading context instructions and the other half received standard instructions which did not mention reading. We found no significant differences in SFV performance between the two instruction groups. We also found no significant effect of word frequency on SFV performance. These findings indicate that providing a reading context in the instructions did not improve performance on this task and that performance is not influenced by word frequency. We present these findings in the context of prior related studies and discuss some implications and future directions.