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Empirical
Support for Accommodations Most Often Allowed in
State Policy
NCEO
Synthesis Report 41
Published
by the National Center on Educational
Outcomes
Prepared
by:
Martha
Thurlow • Sara Bolt
November
2001
Any or all portions of this
document may be reproduced and distributed without
prior permission, provided the source is cited
as:
Thurlow, M., & Bolt, S.
(2001). Empirical support for accommodations
most often allowed in state policy (Synthesis
Report 41).Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes.
Retrieved [today's date], from the World
Wide Web:
http://education.umn.edu/NCEO/OnlinePubs/Synthesis41.html
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The
need for research findings on the effects of
assessment accommodations has been lamented for
several years. This need was heightened in
importance as IDEA 97 became law and required that
students with disabilities be included in
assessments and provided with needed assessment
accommodations. In 1999 Tindal and Fuchs developed
a comprehensive review of the literature on test
changes. The complexity of the many studies
included in that review made it evident that in the
future a searchable data base was needed to cull
the information for addressing specific
accommodations, specific groups of students,
specific ages, or combinations of these and other
factors. NCEO launched a searchable database of
research on accommodations in September, 2001
(http://education.umn.edu/NCEO/AccomStudies.htm),
with plans to update the research included in the
accommodations database every three
months.
This report
is a compilation of information collected from the
searchable database on the accommodations that are
most often allowed in state policies: Braille
editions, computer/machine response, dictate
response to scribe, extended time, interpreter for
instructions, large print edition, mark answers in
test booklet, read aloud, test direction
clarifications, and test breaks. The summary of
research reveals that there are not yet simple or
conclusive answers to questions about the effects
of specific accommodations. It is important to
continue to document what the research tells us,
and to analyze the specific contexts of the
studies, their methodologies, and their
findings.
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The
reauthorization of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act in 1997 (IDEA 97)
requires that students with disabilities be
included in state and district assessments, with
appropriate accommodations as necessary.
Accommodations are changes in assessment materials
or procedures that address aspects of
students’ disabilities that may interfere with
the demonstration of their knowledge and skills on
standardized tests. Accommodations attempt to
eliminate barriers to meaningful testing, thereby
allowing for the participation of students with
disabilities in state and district
assessments.
Currently
there is limited consensus on what constitutes an
“appropriate” accommodation. Although
providing accommodations for sensory or physical
disabilities (e.g., Braille, large print, etc.) has
rarely been questioned, accommodations for students
with disabilities that specifically affect
cognitive functioning (e.g., read the test to the
student, extended time, etc.) have been considered
more controversial due to beliefs that these
accommodations may alter the construct the test is
intended to measure (Phillips, 1994). This
controversy is evident from analyses of state
policies of testing accommodations. Thurlow, House,
Boys, Scott, and Ysseldyke (2000) found that
although there has been an increase in the number
of states with accommodation policies, states
continue to vary in terms of which accommodations
they will either allow on statewide tests or treat
in the same way as “standard” test
administrations.
Complicating
this issue is the fact that empirical research on
the effects of specific testing accommodations is
still quite limited (Fuchs, Fuchs, Eaton, Hamlett,
& Karns, 2000). In 1999, Tindal and Fuchs
completed a comprehensive review of literature on
testing accommodation research. Although they
identified 114 studies on test changes overall,
these studies have not provided conclusive support
for many specific accommodations. Also, many of the
studies that were included in their review did not
address the use of specific
accommodations.
Given the controversy
surrounding the use of accommodations as evidenced
by state policy analysis (Thurlow et al., 2000), it
is important to know that the most frequently
allowed accommodations are supported by a solid
research base. The purpose of this document is to
summarize information currently available on 10 of
the most frequently allowed testing accommodations
in state policies. The intent of this summary is to
provide information on what the research currently
indicates, and to provide decision makers with a
general overview of common accommodations in order
to help in making “appropriate”
accommodation decisions.
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