This study examined the impact of students' background characteristics (English language proficiency) on the level of effectiveness of various types of testing accommodations. Data were collected from 946 eighth graders, some of whom were English language learners. Four accommodation strategies were used: (1) modified (simplified) English language…

The current study was designed to examine performance effects and fatigue effects associated with different total SAT testing times. In addition, the researchers examined personality, motivation, and other determinants of individual differences in examinee fatigue before, during, and after testing.

Testing language skills is difficult, but testing writing, and the writing of students of English as a Second Language, poses two major problems. The first is making decisions about the matter of control, objectivity of the evaluation, and naturalness in the writing test. The second major problem is that, if the test is done in a way that cannot…

Although evidence is accumulating that the major reading difficulty dyslexics experience involves decoding and recognizing printed words, it is not clear that all dyslexics read poorly for the same reasons. A study investigated dyslexic children between 7 and 14 years of age to see if their reading errors and patterns of performance would enable…

An overview of the development of a computerized version of the Differential Aptitude Tests (DAT) is presented. It describes the previously existing printed version of the DAT, design of the computerized adaptive edition, calibration of the test items for use in the computerized version, and two field studies that compared the Adaptive and…

Data available from the Fall and Spring administration of the Stanford Achievement Test: Intermediate I: Form X and the Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Test for all Title I pupils in the State of New Hampshire plus a random sample for the entire state, made possible the item-by-item comparison of Fall and Spring performance on the same groups of…

One of the many criticisms leveled at standardized testing is that the time limits commonly used require a speed component of performance which may act to the disadvantaged of certain culturally defined groups. Recent studies by the authors examined the question of differential time limits and group performance for standardized academic aptitude…

Spanish students in four inner-city high schools were first tested for conceptual tempo and then given the Test of Oral Proficiency in Spanish (TOPS). It is concluded that speeded and timed tests not only allow impulsive examinees to answer too soon, but often pressure normally reflective examinees to respond impulsively. (EJS)

Eighty-five fourth- and eighth-grade learning disabled students whose individualized education plans specified untimed achievement testing were tested with the Reading Comprehension subtest of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, either according to the publisher's 40-minute time limit or with an extended time limit of 2 hours, 30 minutes. Results were…

Possible causes of a 16-point mean score increase for the computer adaptive form of the College Level Academic Skills Test (CLAST) in reading over the paper-and-pencil test (PPT) in reading are examined. The adaptive form of the CLAST was used in a state-wide field test in which reading, writing, and computation scores for approximately 1,000…

In response to informal reports that the time limitations on the new 1978 test forms of the General Educational Development (GED) Tests resulted in some examinees having to work substantially faster than at a comfortable rate, this study was designed (1) to estimate the time required for examinees to complete the tests at their preferred rate; (2)…

The associations among cognitive automatization, abstract problem solving, and educational performance were studied using 127 fourth to ninth grade students. A number of measures of fast, automatic, and fluent performance (FAF measures) were used: writing the alphabet; reading from a word list; and mentally performing arithmetic operations. The…

The ability to correctly answer reading comprehension test items, without having read the accompanying reading passage, was compared for third grade learning disabled students and their peers from a regular classroom. In the first experiment, fourteen multiple choice items were selected from the Stanford Achievement Test. No reading passages were…

Minority and majority groups were administered a special quantitative section of the Admission Test for Graduate Study in Business (ATGSB) under varying time conditions to determine if increasing the time allotted for the test would eliminate any bias which may exist due to an irrelevant speed factor. By a commonly employed definition the special…

Using a quasi-experimental analysis of variance (ANOVA) design, this project examined the effects of the use of accommodations with students of limited English proficiency (LEP) and non-LEP students and whether the use of accommodations affected the validity of test score interpretations. Major accommodations examined were extra time, and extra…