The DAB-4 is a revision of one of the most popular individual achievement tests available. Its 8 subtests identify students’ strengths and weaknesses across important areas of school achievement. A supplemental manual shows how to probe student responses to obtain information about students’ thinking processes and problem-solving strategies.

New Features of the DAB-4

• All-new normative data were collected from 2011 to 2013.
• The demographically representative normative sample (n = 1,310) was stratified by age relative to region, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, and other critical variables.
• Test items were subjected to differential item analyses to find and eliminate potentially biased items.
• Subtests were reduced from 14 to 8 in order to streamline administration time and provide more useful, accurate results.

Subtests of the DAB-4

• Listening Comprehension
• Synonyms
• Alphabet/Phonics/Word Identification
• Reading Comprehension
• Punctuation/Capitalization*
• Spelling*
• Mathematics Reasoning
• Mathematics Calculation*

*can be administered individually or in small groups

Scores from these subtests can be combined to form five composites:

• Spoken Language
• Reading
• Writing
• Mathematics
• Total Basic Academic Skills

Standard scores (M=10, SD=3 for the subtests and M=100, SD=15 for the composites), percentile ranks, and age/grade equivalents are provided.

Reliability and Validity

Internal consistency (content sampling) reliability coefficients for all of the composites range from .89 to .97. The test-retest (time sampling) coefficient for the Total Basic Academic Skill composite is .94. Correlations of the DAB-4 composite scores with those of other well-known academic achievement measures range from .56 to .76. Diagnostic accuracy studies indicate that the DAB-4 is able to accurately identify students with poor academic achievement and students with a prior learning disability diagnosis (i.e., median sensitivity = .85, median specificity = .95, median ROC/AUC = .98). Considerable other validity evidence is provided in the manual.

Uses for the DAB-4

The DAB-4 has four primary uses. It can be used to

1. identify students who are significantly below their peers in basic academic skills,
2. determine the particular kinds of component strengths and weaknesses that individual students possess,
3. document students’ progress in specific areas as a consequence of special intervention programs, and
4. conduct research studies of academic achievement.