Do Proper Accommodation Assignments Make a Difference? Examining the Impact of Improved Decision Making on Scores for English Language Learners

Abstract

Does it matter if students are appropriately assigned to test accommodations? Using a randomized method, this study found that individual students assigned accommodations keyed to their particular needs were significantly more efficacious for English language learners (ELLs) and that little difference was reported between students receiving incomplete or not recommended accommodations and no accommodations whatsoever. A sample of third and fourth grade ELLs in South Carolina (N = 272) were randomly assigned to various types of test accommodations on a mathematics assessment. Results indicated that those students who received the appropriate test accommodations, as recommended by a version of a computerized accommodation taxonomy for ELLs (the selection taxonomy for English language learners accommodations; STELLA), had significantly higher test scores than ELLs who received no accommodations or those who received incomplete or not recommended accommodation packages. Additionally, students who were given no test accommodations scored no differently than those students that received accommodation packages that were incomplete or not recommended, given the students' particular needs and challenges. These findings are important in light of research and anecdotal reports that suggest a general lack of systematicity in the current system of assigning accommodations and a tendency to give all available accommodations regardless of individual child characteristics. The results also have important implications for how future accommodation research should be structured to determine the benefits of particular accommodations and accommodation packages. This study would suggest that control and treatment groups should be assembled based on specific student needs in order for direct comparisons to be made.

On the Effectiveness of Pop-Up English Language Glossary Accommodations for EL Students in Large-Scale Assessments

“…Our results conflict with some existing research, which have sometimes found positive results across grades and subjects (Abedi, 2009;Kopriva et al, 2007). However, these studies that have found positive results for accommodations that include pop-up glossaries have had few students in the glossary accommodation condition and were not designed to study pop-up glossaries per se.…”

“…Because there were several, co-occurring accommodations in the "computerized accommodation" condition, it is unclear whether the pop-up glossary produced the benefit that ELs experienced. Furthermore, Kopriva et al (2007) were primarily focused not on specific accommodations, but rather how ELs' individual differences in educational needs affected their accommodation preferences. When researchers compared test results with recommendation results, they found a significant effect for the pop-up glossaries only when the students were recommended for that accommodation.…”

“…A few studies have found positive results for computer-based pop-up glossaries. There has been little evidence of adverse influence on validity, and ELs have generally seen score increases when using this accommodation (Abedi, 2009;Kopriva, Emick, Hipolito-Delgado, & Cameron, 2007). In some experimental settings, this accommodation allows the researcher to track both the frequency and the duration of student access to the glosses.…”

The Impact of Setting Accommodation on Large-scale Assessment of English Language Learners with and without Learning Disabilities: Balanced vs. Unbalanced Data in Latent Class Analyses

“…Previous studies have expressed concerns about the impact of such accommodations for ELL students in large-scale assessments; that is, some accommodations appear to be are more appropriate than others for ELL students (e.g., Abedi & Gándara, 2006;Abedi, Hofstetter, & Lord, 2004;Abedi, Lord, Hofstetter, & Baker, 2000;Kopriva, Emick, Hipolito-Delgado, & Cameron, 2007) although the studies yielded inconclusive findings. In addition to accommodations, it is also important to take various student characteristics into account while examining school achievement of ELL students with and without disabilities (e.g., Abedi et al, 2000;Abedi et al, 2004).…”

Improving Meaningful Use of Accommodations by Multilingual Learners

“…States gradually began to more carefully guide the assignment of accommodations according to students' proficiency levels in English, academic literacy in English and their native language, prior schooling, and content instruction in their native language, using guidance from Acosta et al (2008) and Kopriva, Emick, Hipolito-Delgado, and Cameron (2007). Indeed, Kopriva et al found that when MLLs were assigned accommodations that matched their linguistic and cultural needs during testing, they were better able to show what they knew than MLLs who were assigned incomplete accommodations (i.e., assigned accommodations without matching them to more linguistically responsive criteria) and MLLs who were not assigned any accommodations at all.…”