Pupils’ Perceptions on Accommodations in Multilingual Assessment of Science

One of the greatest assessment challenges is providing fair and valid tests for multilingual pupils. Since language proficiency impacts their results on content tests, accommodations are suggested to help in solving the validity issues. In this mixed methods study on multilingual assessment, pupils were divided according to three testing conditions: one with the written science test in the language of instruction (LOI = Dutch); a second one in which pupils received a bilingual test in the LOI and a written translation in their first language (L1); and a third bilingual condition with added audio support in both languages. For each condition pupils were interviewed about their testing experience, including their decisions (not) to make use of particular accommodations. Results indicate that pupils perceived the accommodations as helpful. The strategies they used depend on personal preferences, language proficiency in both languages, the content attended to and the complexity of the test item. This study illustrates pupils’ dynamic use of accommodations in relation to their linguistic repertoires.