Draft:Testing Accommodations

Testing accommodations include a wide variety of changes to standardized testing administration rules that govern time, presentation, response, and setting.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) recognizes that testing accommodations are an important requirement for ensuring all Americans have fair access to education and career pathways. This act defines testing accommodations as "changes to the regular testing environment and auxiliary aids and services that allow individuals with disabilities to demonstrate their true aptitude or achievement level on standardized exams or other high-stakes tests".

Testing accommodations include a wide variety of changes to standardized testing administration rules that govern time, presentation, response, and setting. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing provide some guidance on how testing accommodation decisions should be made to ensure these changes alter the construct being measured or the comparability of test scores.

Recently, the international testing community has begun to explore how to provide testing accommodations on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) standardized tests that compare performance across the world.

Types of Testing Accommodations
The most commonly requested accommodation on admissions and licensure tests is extended testing time. While read-aloud or text to speech is the most common accommodation on K12 state assessments due to their more generous time limits. The Americans with Disabilities Act lists the following types of testing accommodations:
 * Braille or large-print exam booklets;
 * Screen reading technology;
 * Scribes to transfer answers to Scantron bubble sheets or record dictated notes and essays;
 * Extended time;
 * Wheelchair-accessible testing stations;
 * Distraction-free rooms;
 * Physical prompts (such as for individuals with hearing impairments); and
 * Permission to bring and take medications during the exam

Research
A large body of research has been conducted on testing accommodations. Perhaps the largest collection of resources is housed by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) at the University of Minnesota. The NCEO Accommodation Toolkit includes reviews of state testing accommodation policy and research articles. In addition, many state departments of education in the United States have funded research to examine the validity and usability of different testing accommodations and universal tools (accommodations built into test delivery platforms for all test takers).

Flagging Accommodated Test Scores
Prior to 2002, most large testing companies followed a practice of 'flagging' test scores taken with testing accommodations. The practice was due to a lack of psychometric evidence that tests take with and without testing accommodations were 'psychometrically comparable.' However, a lawsuit by a test taker resulted in Educational Testing Service and the College Board conducting research to answer this question. While the studies showed that extended testing time did slightly overpredict first-year grade point average (FGPA). In February 2001, ETS President Kurt Landgraf determined that this was negligible relative to the negative impact of flagging on people with disabilities. The College Board and ACT quickly followed suit and stopped the practice for most tests.