Experimental Analysis of the Effects of Testing Accommodations on the Scores of Students with and without Disabilities (original) (raw)

2001, Journal of School Psychology

Students with disabilities frequently use accommodations to participate in large-scale, standardized assessments. Accommodations can include changes to the administration of the test, such as extended time, changes to the test items, such as read aloud, or changes to the student's response, such as the use of a scribe. Some accommodations or modifications risk changing the difficulty of the test items or decreasing the validity of how test scores are interpreted. Questions regarding the validity of accommodated tests are heightened when scores are used in high-stakes decisions such as grade promotion, graduation, teacher merit pay, or other accountability initiatives. The purpose of this article is to review existing literature on multiple constructs that affect validity of interpretations of accommodated assessment scores. Research on assessment accommodations continues to grow but offers few conclusive findings on whether they facilitate fair and accurate measurement of student knowledge and skill. The validity of an accommodated score appears to vary depending on several factors such as student characteristics, test characteristics, and the accommodations themselves. A multiple construct approach may facilitate more accurate evaluations of the effects of accommodated test scores The last forty years of education policy in the United States have been marked by civil rights legislation, court cases, and school reforms (e.g. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; Rehabilitation Act of 1973). Central to these measures is the emphasis on equal opportunities for all people, including those with disabilities. The Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (1997, 2004) and the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) sparked the most recent focus in education: accountability for student outcomes. Accountability reforms depend upon standardized, high-stakes assessments to measure student knowledge and skill. In many states, test scores now influence decisions regarding student graduation and grade promotion, teacher salaries, and the allocation of school resources. In the past, students with disabilities were excluded from standardized, high-stakes assessments (Mazzeo, Carlson, Voekl, & Lutkus, 2000). This exclusion was due, in part, to the inaccessibility of some standardized test formats (Bolt & Thurlow, 2004). However, recent legislation at Austin, Texas, 78712 Stephanie.cawthon [at] mail.utexas.edu.