The Content Validation of Malaysian Dyslexia Accommodating Screening Test (MYDAST) Through the Application of Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM)

Abstract

This study aims to examine the content validity of malaysian dyslexia accommodating screening test (mydast) which was developed for english language teachers to identify dyslexia symptoms among their pupils. Fuzzy delphi method by Murray, Pipino, & Gigch (1985) was applied in the process of validation. This study used the survey design with a printed questionnaire distributed to 15 experts in related field selected through purposive sampling technique. Eight of them were professional experts at public universities and another seven were lay experts from various related professions such as clinical psychologist, english language teachers, and teachers of pupils with dyslexia. 230 items from 15 constructs were validated based on phonological processing deficit hypothesis (Snowling, 1998). The findings show that expert consensus on the items in all the constructs are at a good level except for the ‘rhyming’, ‘digit span’ and ‘reverse digit span’ constructs together with 45 items that must be omitted from mydast. Also, it was found that 24 items must be revised. The overall findings of the experts’ consensus agreement exceed 75%, the overall value of the threshold (d) < 0.2 and α-cut value exceeds 0.5. This suggests that mydast could be promoted as a psychometric test to identify dyslexia symptoms among pupils by english language teachers.