Testing Accommodations for Examinees With Disabilities: A Review of Psychometric, Legal, and Social Policy Issues

Abstract

The provision of testing accommodations for examinees with disabling conditions has become an important topic in recent years. This review presents a summary of the relevant issues. The first section traces the history of legislation related to the testing of individuals with disabilities and presents a brief summary of guidelines issued by relevant testing organizations. The second section provides a description of disabilities typically accommodated in large-scale examinations and highlights the ever-increasing role of learning disabilities in testing practice. Summaries of legal cases concerning testing accommodations are then presented. Next, psychometric issues are described, and results and ideas for future research are presented. The review also examines the emerging role of learning disabilities in the area of testing accommodations and addresses the intensely debated social policy questions related to equity and fairness in educational assessment. Pitoniak and RoyerTindal, Hollenbeck, Heath, and Almond (1997; see also Hollenbeck, Tindal, & Almond, 1998) defined the two terms as follows.Accommodations do not change the nature of the construct being tested, but differentially affect a student's or group's performance in comparison to a peer group. Also, accommodations provide unique and differential access (to performance) so certain students or groups of students may complete the test and tasks without other confounding influences of test format, administration, or responding.Modifications result in a change in the test (how it is given, how it is completed, or what construct is being assessed) and work across the board for all students with equal effect. Because of the lack of interaction between "group" and "change in test," the modification itself does not qualify as an accommodation. (Hollenbeck et al., 1998, pp. 175-176) In this article, we focus on the provision of testing accommodations. 2 The review begins with a history of the legislation related to the testing of candidates with disabilities, followed by a brief summary of guidelines issued by relevant testing organizations. Next, a description of disabilities typically accommodated in large-scale examinations is provided, and the increasingly prominent role of learning disabilities in measurement is given specific focus. Following that section, legal cases concerning testing accommodations are summarized. Then a review of psychometric issues and results is presented, along with ideas for future research. The article concludes with a discussion that integrates these intertwined strands and places them within a social policy context.It should be noted that this article focuses on large-scale educational assessments. As the reader will see, testing accommodations involve customizing materials and testing conditions to the candidate's needs. Standardized testing, with an extensive literature on relevant issues, provides a useful starting point for a discussion of testing conditions. Individualized assessments and psychological tests, which hav...

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