Technological advances have permitted devising new Internet-mediated psychological assessment tools for the school context. It is necessary to evaluate the efficacy of such instruments. This study analyses the validity of The Silence Reading Skills Test-On-line for assessing lexical decision skills. The study involved 451 children with mean age of 8,24 (SD=1,23) from pre-school and primary school. The test was administered through Internet with automatic result recording. Results showed that scores increased significantly over successive school levels (except from 3rd to 4th grade). Error analysis revealed that pre-school children have difficulty with orthographic lexicon. The Web-based application produced response patterns equivalent to those obtained in the typical paper and pencil application. Results corroborated the feasibility of using the Internet for collecting data of tests based on theoretical constructs.
Reading; Assessment; Computers; Internet
