Strategies for Analyzing Statewide Assessment Data to Evaluate Test Accommodations

Public laws and professional guidelines in educational testing require that students with disabilities and English learners be provided with accommodations to standard test administration conditions if those conditions reduce their access to the assessment. However, changes to standardized test conditions can alter the construct measured and lead to scores that may not be comparable to those from standard test administrations. Thus, research is needed to evaluate the effects of test accommodations. In this study, we illustrate data analysis strategies and two statistical procedures that are not commonly applied to this problem – person-fit and multidimensional scaling analyses – researchers can use to evaluate the comparability of scores from standard and accommodated test administrations.