Adult Reading History Questionnaire—Finnish Short Version (ARHQ)

Abstract

The Adult Reading History Questionnaire–Finnish Short Version (ARHQ), developed by Khanolainen et al. in 2024, represents an efficiently adapted and abbreviated form of the original Adult Reading History Questionnaire (Lefly & Pennington, 2000). The original instrument comprised 23 items covering areas crucial to understanding reading development, including childhood reading-related difficulties, academic achievement in school, current reading and spelling habits, and short-term memory performance. Through rigorous psychometric analyses, specifically involving factor analysis and Item Response Theory (IRT), the measure was successfully streamlined to a concise 5-item scale. Validation data concerning the reliability and validity of this short version were collected from independent samples in both Finland and the Netherlands, demonstrating its utility as a brief screening tool.

Keywords

Adult Literacy, Dyslexia, Reading History, Finnish Short Version, Reading Ability, Screening Tests, Test Revision

Authors

Khanolainen, Daria, Verwimp, Cara, Tijms, Jurgen, Tolvanen, Asko, Salminen, Jenni, Torppa, Minna

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Finnish short version of the ARHQ is to offer a more practical and convenient alternative to the extensive full version for use in both clinical and research settings. Despite its brevity, the instrument maintains strong predictive utility, proving to be at least as effective as the full version in predicting children’s reading skills when completed by parents. By providing an efficient screening measure, the ARHQ facilitates the implementation of more targeted early interventions, support mechanisms, and specialized research efforts focused on children identified as being at risk for reading difficulties.

Construct

The ARHQ–Finnish Short Version is fundamentally designed to assess an individual’s history related to reading and literacy, serving as an indirect measure for identifying potential underlying risk factors associated with Dyslexia. The scale captures self-reported information regarding an individual’s developmental trajectory and persistent challenges in reading and spelling. The construct, therefore, centers on both the retrospective account of an individual’s Reading History and the clinical screening for characteristics associated with developmental reading disorders.

Validity

The test validity of the abbreviated ARHQ was established through comparisons with the original, full-length scale and external reading assessment scores. The correlations between the brief 5-item version and the original 23-item version were consistently high, ranging from 0.80 to 0.88 across three distinct samples, indicating strong concurrent validity. Furthermore, the predictive accuracy of the short version was confirmed by comparing its scores against comprehensive reading assessment outcomes collected from two separate Finnish samples, reinforcing the scale’s utility as a valid screening instrument.

Reliability

The internal consistency of the ARHQ short version was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha across two independent samples. In Sample 1, the brief version demonstrated an alpha of 0.81, while the full version yielded an alpha of 0.86. In Sample 2, the brief version maintained high reliability with an alpha of 0.84, comparable to the full version’s alpha of 0.89. These results indicate that the 5 retained items possess a high degree of internal consistency, suggesting that they reliably measure the intended underlying construct of reading history and difficulty.

Factor Analysis

The development of the abbreviated ARHQ involved extensive psychometric refinement using advanced statistical techniques. Initially, an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted on the original 23 items. A 6-factor model was determined to provide the best fit for the data, supported by favorable model indices (Comparative Fit Index = 0.95, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual = 0.03, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = 0.06, χ2[130] = 299.65, p < 0.001). During this initial screening, four items (specifically items 1, 7, 12, and 19) were excluded because their factor loadings did not exceed the threshold of 0.4.

Following the EFA, further refinement utilized Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis. This rigorous methodology identified 12 additional items that failed to clearly discriminate between respondents with different levels of the latent trait, leading to their removal. Finally, two more items were eliminated due to redundancy, culminating in the highly condensed and psychometrically sound 5-item measure that forms the ARHQ–Finnish Short Version.

Instrument

Test Type: Rating Scale

Format: Items are rated using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 0 to 4.

Language Available: Finnish

Population Group: Human (Male and Female)

Age Group: Adulthood (18 years & older), specifically validated for Young Adulthood (18-29 years) and Thirties (30-39 years)

Population Details: Data were collected from samples located in Finland and the Netherlands.

Test Methodology: Test Validity, Test Reliability, Internal Consistency, Factor Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis, Item Response Theory

Keywords

Adult Development, Reading Disabilities, Reading Measures, Screening Tests, Test Revision, Cognitive Processes, Memory, Decision Making

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier:

• Khanolainen, Daria: ORCID: 0000-0002-1571-2938
• Verwimp, Cara: ORCID: 0000-0002-5444-303X
• Tolvanen, Asko: ORCID: 0000-0001-6430-8897
• Salminen, Jenni: ORCID: 0000-0003-4534-6462
• Torppa, Minna: ORCID: 0000-0003-3834-9892

Affiliation Email addresses: Information not provided in the source material.

Correspondence Address: Information not provided in the source material. Supplemental material is available via the OSF Site.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Commercial Use: No

Fee: No fee is required for use.

Test Year: 2024

Reference’s

Khanolainen, D., Verwimp, C., Tijms, J., Tolvanen, A., Salminen, J., & Torppa, M. (2024). Developing and validating an abbreviated adult reading history questionnaire in the Finnish and Dutch contexts. Journal of Research in Reading, 47(2), 132–144. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9817.12445

Items of the Adult Reading History Questionnaire–Finnish Short Version (ARHQ)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

The test items for the Adult Reading History Questionnaire–Finnish Short Version (ARHQ) are not available in the source material. To obtain the test items, researchers and practitioners must contact the author or the publisher directly.