Original TOWL published in 1978 and modified in 1983.Recommended Administrator: The TOWL-4 is a level B test and the examiner's manual
recommended that examiners have "some formal training in assessment", such as a college or
university course. Examiners also need to have a strong knowledge of English language
usage, conventions, grammar and the proper construction of sentences and compositions to be
able to score the subtests (recommended college graduate level of proficiency). Amount/Type of training needed: The TOWL-4 manual states that individuals with the
qualifications stated above should be able to competently administer the subtests after
familiarizing themselves with the specific administration instructions provided and practicing
scoring for the spontaneous writing subtests. Reliability: The examiner's manual presents evidence to support the reliability of the
instrument. Coefficient alpha values are provided for each subtest at different ages and
grades. These showed Internal Consistency for most subtests (.72-.96), and for composite
scores (.82-.96). Test-Retest reliability was mostly within acceptable range (93% rounded to
.80 or above). Alternate Forms of composite scores (Immediate: .94 & .95) showed internal
consistency but Alternate Forms Delayed (.73- .94) was not proven to be reliable in the
Spontaneous Writing composite score. Interscorer Differences fell within acceptable ranges
of (.80-.99). The information and evidence presented shows that the TOWL-4 has reasonable
internal consistency and test-retest reliability, with the exception of a few subtest scores in the
.71-.75 range, and the Spontaneous Writing composite score. Improvements in reliability over
the years are clearly delineated in the manual. Validity: The TOWL-4 Examiner's Manual Evidence provided support for the content
validity by providing a detailed description of the test format and content of the test. A
rationale for the specific content of each subtest was provided and a rationale for changing the
content form previous versions was included in the Item Analysis. The manual also provides
a discussion on the Criterion-Prediction Validity and showed a comparison with 3 other tests
of literacy, the WLOS, the ROS and the TORC-4. The results showed Level 1-A criterion of
acceptability in two out of three comparison studies, supporting the validity. Standardization: The TOWL-4 was normed on a sample of 2,205 students in 17 states that
was collected between 2006 and 2007. The authors chose four major standardization sites as
representative of the regions of the United States. The demographic characteristics of the
sample included "geographic region, gender, race, ethnicity, household income, education
level of parents, and disabling condition" (Hammill & Larsen, p. 56), and were matched with
the 2007 U. S. Census.Subtests one through
five are called "contrived" and include Vocabulary (using a word in a sentence), Spelling
(writing dictated sentences with an emphasis on correct spelling), Punctuation (writing
dictated sentences with an emphasis on correct punctuation), Logical Sentences (editing
illogical sentences) and Sentence Combining (integrating two or more sentences into one
grammatically correct sentence). Subtests six and seven are called "spontaneous", and are
based on a story written by the subject in 15 minutes; subtest six, Contextual Conventions,
measures orthographic and grammatical conventions.These individual scores are then combined into three
composite scores, Contrived Writing, Spontaneous Writing and Overall Writing.