Available Research on the Effects of Accommodations on Validity

Available Research on the Effects of Accommodations on Validity

From the perspective of score interpretation, the purpose of testing accommodations is to reduce the dependence of test scores on factors that are irrelevant to the construct that is being assessed. As Haertel noted: Ideally, the accommodation would eliminate some particular impediment faced by a given examinee, so that the accommodated administration for that examinee was equivalent to a standard accommodation for a typical examinee in all other respects. The score earned by the accommodated examinee would then be interpreted as conveying the same information with respect to the intended construct as a score obtained under standard administration conditions.

Thus in investigating the validity of inferences based on accommodated testing there are two paramount questions: Do the accommodated and unaccommodated versions of the test measure the same construct? If so, are they equivalent in difficulty and precision? Evidence that the answers to both questions is yes constitutes support for considering the two versions equivalent. In the past several years, there have been numerous calls for research into accommodations for students with disabilities and English language learners. The National Research Council (NRC) (1999a), for example, called for a research agenda that includes studies of "the need for particular types of accommodations and the adequacy and appropriateness of accommodations applied to various categories of students with disabilities and English-language learners" and "the validity of different types of accommodations" (National Research Council, 1999a, pp. 110-111). Participants at an NRC workshop on reporting test results for students with disabilities and English language learners outlined a full agenda of research into the effects of accommodations (National Research Council, 2002a). Two different NRC committees that addressed the educational needs and concerns of students with disabilities (National Research Council, 1997a) and English language learners (National Research Council, 2000b) both recommended programs of research aimed at investigating the performance of these groups in large-scale standardized assessments.

In this part, learning a foreign language needs a leaning tools, many students choose Rosetta Stone German and Rosetta Stone Hebrew to learn German and Hebrew. A substantial amount of useful and interesting research is already available on the effects of accommodations on test performance, and several extensive reviews of this literature have been conducted. The effects of accommodations on test performance have been reviewed by Chiu and Pearson (1999); Tindal and Fuchs (2000); and Thompson et al. (2002). However, much of the existing research focuses on whether or not the accommodation had an effect on performance and, in some cases, on whether the effect was different for students with and without disabilities. Little of the available research directly addresses the validity of inferences made from the results of accommodated assessments, yet it is this second kind of research that could really assist policy makers and others in making decisions about accommodations. In this chapter, we review the available research regarding accommodations and outline the current methods of conducting validity research. In Chapter 6 we present the committee's view of the way the validity of inferences based on accommodated assessments can best be evaluated.

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