Abstract
Psychometricians who agree that fairness is a desirable goal in testing may disagree regarding whether scores from a particular testing program provide the basis for fair inferences about test takers. Most psychometricians do agree that fairness is a fundamental validity issue that should be addressed from the very conception of a new test or testing process. One commonly adopted position is that fair interpretations of test results are based on scores that have comparable meaning for all individuals in the intended population and that fair test score interpretations do not cause an advantage or disadvantage due to characteristics of individual test takers that are irrelevant to the construct the test is intended to measure. An important concept associated with fairness in testing is the concept of an accessible assessment. We approach from a practical standpoint (a) how to create accessible assessments with a focus on the design and development of the construct, content, format, response mode, and score reports, (b) how assistive technology can be used to increase accessibility and fairness for some groups of test takers, (c) what happens if assessments continue to present barriers to some groups of test takers in spite of efforts to make them accessible, and (d) the need for test accommodations and modifications including how to form policies for accommodations. Finally, we provide suggestions for how to evaluate the fairness and accessibility of an assessment.
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Notes
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Accommodations are typically defined as adjustments to the test or testing process that do not alter the assessed construct; whereas, modifications are adjustments to the test or testing process that may affect the construct being measured and, consequently, result in scores that differ in meaning from scores on the unmodified test.
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See, for example, the fairness guidelines developed by Educational Testing Service: https://www.ets.org/Media/About_ETS/pdf/overview.pdf.
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Stone, E.A., Cook, L.L. (2018). Fair Testing and the Role of Accessibility. In: Elliott, S., Kettler, R., Beddow, P., Kurz, A. (eds) Handbook of Accessible Instruction and Testing Practices. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71126-3_4
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