The Effect of Linguistic Simplification of Science Test Items on Score Comparability

Rivera, Charlene; Stansfield, Charles W.

doi:10.1207/s15326977ea0903&4_1

Cited by 12 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…With the increased emphasis placed on standardized testing for measuring student achievement (e.g., Improving America's Schools Act of 1994; No Child Left Behind Act of 2001), there is simultaneously a call for the inclusion of more diverse student groups, including English language learners (ELLs), in standardized testing. Questions of how to incorporate ELLs into large‐scale academic accountability systems have yet to be completely answered, although the usage of testing accommodations has been viewed as a key method to meaningfully incorporate ELLs into these assessments (Butler & Stevens, 2001; Rivera & Stansfield, 2003). Unfortunately, however, research on testing accommodations has yielded mixed results regarding their overall effectiveness with ELLs (Abedi, 2001; Abedi, Courtney, & Leon, 2003; Emick, Kopriva, Chen, Mislevy, & Carr, 2006; Mann, Emick, Cho, & Kopriva, 2006).…”

Section: Validity Of Accommodation Assignmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Multiple methods that attempt to properly include students in large‐scale academic tests have been utilized. In some cases, translated versions of standardized tests have been created, alternative testing conditions have been employed, and, most often, test accommodations have been identified and adopted (Butler & Stevens, 1997; Rivera & Stansfield, 2003). However, given the plethora of languages spoken by ELLs, the limited literacy of many students in their L1, the difficulty of producing appropriately translated tests, English‐only legislation, and movement to test students in the language of instruction, it appears that it is often impractical to produce and use a wide range of written test translations.…”

Section: Need For Systematic Assignment Of Test Accommodations With Ellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Do Proper Accommodation Assignments Make a Difference? Examining the Impact of Improved Decision Making on Scores for English Language Learners

Kopriva¹,

Emick

Hipolito‐Delgado³

et al. 2007

Educational Measurement

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Does it matter if students are appropriately assigned to test accommodations? Using a randomized method, this study found that individual students assigned accommodations keyed to their particular needs were significantly more efficacious for English language learners (ELLs) and that little difference was reported between students receiving incomplete or not recommended accommodations and no accommodations whatsoever. A sample of third and fourth grade ELLs in South Carolina (N = 272) were randomly assigned to various types of test accommodations on a mathematics assessment. Results indicated that those students who received the appropriate test accommodations, as recommended by a version of a computerized accommodation taxonomy for ELLs (the selection taxonomy for English language learners accommodations; STELLA), had significantly higher test scores than ELLs who received no accommodations or those who received incomplete or not recommended accommodation packages. Additionally, students who were given no test accommodations scored no differently than those students that received accommodation packages that were incomplete or not recommended, given the students' particular needs and challenges. These findings are important in light of research and anecdotal reports that suggest a general lack of systematicity in the current system of assigning accommodations and a tendency to give all available accommodations regardless of individual child characteristics. The results also have important implications for how future accommodation research should be structured to determine the benefits of particular accommodations and accommodation packages. This study would suggest that control and treatment groups should be assembled based on specific student needs in order for direct comparisons to be made.

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Section: Validity Of Accommodation Assignmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Need For Systematic Assignment Of Test Accommodations With Ellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Proper Accommodation Assignments Make a Difference? Examining the Impact of Improved Decision Making on Scores for English Language Learners

Kopriva¹,

Emick

Hipolito‐Delgado³

et al. 2007

Educational Measurement

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show abstract

“…Still, it remains unclear again, if the better performance can be explained by the word count or the substitution of words. Several experimental studies in which linguistic features in science items, such as word count and sentence structure were modified, report ambivalent effects on students' performance (Höttecke et al 2018;Rivera and Stansfield 2004;Abedi et al 2003). However, it is not stated which factor specifically contributed the most to linguistic simplification and better students' performance.…”

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confidence: 99%

Language in science performance: do good readers perform better?

2019

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Science performance is highly affected by students' reading comprehension. Recently, there has been a growing attention to the role of linguistic features for science performance, but findings are ambivalent, especially when looking into item word count. The aim of this study was to investigate the interaction of students' reading comprehension and item word count of given science measures on performance, controlling for students' cognitive abilities, gender, family language, and school track. The sample consisted of N = 2051 German students in grades 10 and 11. Students completed (scientific) literacy measures. We then applied a multilevel logistic regression to investigate the hypothesized interaction effect of reading comprehension and word count on students' science performance. The results showed a significant interaction of students' reading comprehension and word count on science performance, controlling for several covariates. Particularly students with high reading comprehension benefit from science items with increasing word count. Our findings empirically support previous research, showing that reading comprehension is crucial for science performance and enhances the interaction between reading comprehension and linguistic features of written text in science subjects. Finally, theoretical and practical implications and limitations of this study are discussed.

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“…With only one exception, each separate ELL group having a corresponding control group generated an effect size. Owing to extremely small sample sizes for ELL groups in the Rivera and Stansfield (2004) study, it was necessary to combine the means and SD s for more than one randomly equivalent ELL group. The Rivera and Stansfield design included two separate forms of the tests per grade level that were constructed to be parallel tests, with four ELL subsamples per level—two receiving accommodated versions and two receiving the corresponding unaccommodated versions using a randomly equivalent assignment of test forms.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mean Effects of Test Accommodations for ELLs and Non-ELLs: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Studies

Pennock-Román

Rivera

2011

Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice

Self Cite

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The objective was to examine the impact of different types of accommodations on performance in content tests such as mathematics. The meta‐analysis included 14 U.S. studies that randomly assigned school‐aged English language learners (ELLs) to test accommodation versus control conditions or used repeated measures in counter‐balanced order. Individual effect sizes (Glass's d) were calculated for 50 groups of ELLs and 32 groups of non‐ELLs. Individual effect sizes for English language and native language accommodations were classified into groups according to type of accommodation and timing conditions. Means and standard errors were calculated for each category. The findings suggest that accommodations that require extra printed materials need generous time limits for both the accommodated and unaccommodated groups to ensure that they are effective, equivalent in scale to the original test, and therefore more valid owing to reduced construct‐irrelevant variance. Computer‐administered glossaries were effective even when time limits were restricted. Although the Plain English accommodation had very small average effect sizes, inspection of individual effect sizes suggests that it may be much more effective for ELLs at intermediate levels of English language proficiency. For Spanish‐speaking students with low proficiency in English, the Spanish test version had the highest individual effect size (+1.45).

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The Effect of Linguistic Simplification of Science Test Items on Score Comparability

Cited by 12 publications

References 7 publications

Do Proper Accommodation Assignments Make a Difference? Examining the Impact of Improved Decision Making on Scores for English Language Learners

Do Proper Accommodation Assignments Make a Difference? Examining the Impact of Improved Decision Making on Scores for English Language Learners

Language in science performance: do good readers perform better?

Mean Effects of Test Accommodations for ELLs and Non-ELLs: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Studies

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