Abstract
In this chapter, we (a) review validity issues relevant to the assessment of students with disabilities (SWDs) and English learners (ELs), (b) discuss current and emerging practices in test accommodations, and (c) describe methods for evaluating the degree to which test accommodations may facilitate or hinder valid interpretations of students’ performance. We highlight actions test developers, and researchers can take to make tests more accessible and to evaluate the impact of their testing procedures on SWDs and ELs. We also describe new developments in assessing students with severe cognitive disabilities. Given that these developments have a common goal of increasing fairness and accessibility in educational assessment, we also discuss fairness issues in educational testing related to assessing SWDs and ELs.
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Notes
- 1.
For tests measuring English proficiency, English proficiency is seen as construct-relevant (Sireci & Faulkner-Bond, 2015). Thus, there are more accommodations available to ELs for subject area tests such as math and science, where the linguistic complexity of items administered in English is considered construct-irrelevant.
- 2.
Students with severe cognitive disabilities represent a fourth group, but their needs are typically beyond what accommodations can provide, and so alternate assessments are typically provided. We describe alternate assessments in a later section of this chapter.
- 3.
Smarter Balanced and PARRC are multistate assessment consortia in the United States that represent groups of states working together to deliver common assessments in reading and mathematics for elementary, middle, and high school students.
- 4.
Of course, understanding the available accommodations, and practicing using them, would be important for students, parents, and teachers to know and are likely to be beneficial.
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Sireci, S.G., Banda, E., Wells, C.S. (2018). Promoting Valid Assessment of Students with Disabilities and English Learners. 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_15
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