Development and reliability testing of a rapid word naming task for English-Chinese bilinguals

Abstract

The rapid naming task is extremely useful in measuring for reading fluency and accuracy throughout development and in multiple languages. However, no rapid naming task exists for adults, bilinguals, nor in multiple equivalent forms thus far. This study aims to develop six equivalent versions of the rapid naming task in English and Chinese suitable for multiple occasions, and to conduct reliability testing of the task in measuring for mean reaction time and accuracy amongst English-Chinese bilingual adults. Six lists comprising 50 word items per list were constructed in English and Chinese. For each word, 15 separate psycholinguistic variables that affect speeded naming performance and are specific to the characteristics of English and Chinese respectively were reported. In order of importance for RAN task performance, variables were controlled for across the lists in each language to ensure equivalency. To test for reliability, one-way repeated measures ANOVA was conducted for parallel form reliability and additional item analysis for internal consistency. Results showed no statistically significant differences for psycholinguistic variables across the six lists in English and Chinese, and demonstrated that the novel rapid naming task reliably measures for mean reaction time and accuracy amongst the English-Chinese bilingual adult population. Future research is needed for internal and external validation of the new rapid word naming task across different bilingual adult populations and situations.