Modeling item-level spelling variance in adults : Providing further insights into lexical quality

Purpose
The lexical quality (LQ) hypothesis predicts that a skilled reader’s lexicon will be inhabited by a range of low- to high-quality items, and the probability of representing a word with high quality varies as a function of person-level, word-level, and item-specific variables. These predictions were tested with spelling accuracy as a gauge of LQ.

Method
Item-response based crossed random effects models explored simultaneous contributions of person-level (e.g. participant’s decoding skill), word-level (e.g. word’s transparency rating), item-specific (e.g. participant’s familiarity with specific word), and person-by-word interaction predictors (e.g. decoding by transparency rating interaction) to the spelling of 25 commonly misspelled irregular English words in 61 undergraduate university students (M = 19.4 years, 70.49% female, 39.34% Hispanic, 81.97% White).

Results
Substantial variance among individuals in item-level spelling accuracy was accounted for by person-level decoding skill; item-specific familiarity, proportion of schwas correctly represented, and correctly identifying the word from its mispronunciation; and an interaction of transparency rating by general decoding skill.

Conclusions
Consistent with the LQ hypothesis, results suggest that one’s ability to form a high-quality lexical representation of a given word depends on a complex combination of person-level abilities, word-level characteristics, item-specific experiences, and an interaction between person- and word-level influences.