Keywords

The purpose of accommodation is to allow students to best demonstrate their development, understanding, and achievement. There is, however, a lack of consistency in the design, development, and provision of accommodation which is a controversial issue. The types of accommodation adopted include extended time such as time and a half, double time, or unlimited time; small group/individual assessment to reduce distraction to other test takers; providing test directions such as interpretation for students taking tests not in their first language or for English language learners (ELLs); test items read aloud or interpreted; and student sign response for those students having difficulty expressing themselves in writing. Further, there are accommodations in settings such that the environment setup is changed, which is a common practice for students who are easily distracted. Many of these accommodations are not limited to science but are also common in other subject areas.

Considerations of accommodation in assessment in science are recent. Other studies aim to identify the effectiveness of the various measures for accommodations in assessment. Effectiveness is measured or represented in a number of ways including student satisfaction, test score validity, and verifying scores from accommodated tests to see whether they measure the same attributes as the unaccommodated tests.

Cross-References