Testing Students with Special Needs

Why Standard Procedures?

The test administration procedures and directions included in the Directions for Administration manual are the same as those followed in the standardization program from which norms were obtained. By following these same procedures, you will help to ensure that the meaning of your students' scores will not be distorted and that your ability to use the norms will not be compromised. If uniformity in test administration procedures is not maintained, the meaning of the test results may differ from school to school and classroom to classroom. If the directions given to students vary, some students may receive too little assistance from the test administrator and some may receive too much. The net effect will be to make some score interpretations inappropriate or misleading.

The use of a detailed set of directions not only ensures that the efforts of students and teachers will yield meaningful information, but it also makes the task of administering the tests easier. The directions specify what to say, when to say it, what to do, and when to do it. The directions script should be followed exactly.

Accommodations and Modifications

The primary goal of using the ITBS should be to obtain information that will have value for planning and implementing instruction. Occasionally, however, the standardized test administration procedures must be changed so that the best possible information can be obtained for particular students. That is, for individual students with certain learning disabilities or with certain physical or cognitive limitations, tests administered under standard conditions are likely to yield relatively useless information. Under such circumstances, it is reasonable to change the standard administration procedures in ways that will permit meaningful achievement information to be obtained. Nearly always, a student's IEP (Individualized Education Program) should be the guide to whether to accommodate and how to do it.

For students with impaired vision, for example, large print and Braille versions of the tests are available. Some students may have physical disabilities that make it very difficult to mark on the standard answer folder. In such cases, an enlarged answer folder could be provided, or an assistant could record answers on the answer folder for them. Still other students may need to have time limits extended because they use a magnifying reader or because other limitations make their rate of work exceptionally slow.

These are all illustrations of situations that may call for accommodations -- special arrangements, nonstandard conditions, or adjusted administration procedures. The purpose of an accommodation is to reduce entirely, or in part, the influence of a student's disability on his or her test performance. The goal of successful accommodation is to interpret the student's test results as though there was no disability at all. Such interpretation requires decisions by the IEP team that neither give an advantage nor a disadvantage to the student during testing. Each school must establish its own policies to address such situations, and each relevant team of educators -- teacher, counselor, and administrator -- must exercise judgment on a case-by-case basis. Ordinarily, an IEP should be written to account for the need for assessment accommodations. Adaptations should be rare occurrences that are devised to accommodate individuals; they would almost never be appropriate for an entire class of students.

When special circumstances result in changes in test administration procedures, the test administrator should make a written record of the changes, place that record in the test files, and provide a copy of that record to anyone with whom the scores are shared. Then anyone who uses the scores will be aware of the special arrangements and can interpret the scores accordingly. Since the published norms are not always applicable to scores obtained under nonstandard conditions, anyone using the scores must be aware that the grade equivalents, percentile ranks, and other derived scores could be misleading in these circumstances. However, regardless of the changes made, percentile ranks can still be used to identify relative strengths and weaknesses in skill areas. Also, year-to-year growth can be estimated with developmental scores (e.g., grade equivalents) as long as the nonstandard administration procedures have been consistent from year to year.

Educators who are uncertain about the need to offer accommodations or to make modifications for an individual student or about the expected effect of particular changes on test performance should consult the student's IEP or a specialist who has the relevant professional expertise on such matters.

Selecting ITBS Test Levels

When selecting the most appropriate test level for an entire class of students, their grade level and the time of year for testing are the most important criteria. The chart below shows the test level generally recommended for each grade level at various times of year for typical classes and students.

Recommended Level for Time of Year

Once the appropriate test level for the class as a whole has been determined, the teacher must decide whether some other test level may be more appropriate for certain students in the class. Such decisions need to be made prior to the week of testing so that the right test booklets and answer folders can be obtained. Ideally, these decisions should be based on the same considerations that influence the choice of methods and materials used in individualizing instruction. They should not be made on the basis of reading level alone.

Obviously all students in a class are rarely at the same developmental level in reading, in math, or in other areas of the curriculum. If a teacher has been individualizing instruction to accommodate the developmental levels of certain students, then it makes sense that the tests for such students be selected on an individualized basis as well. For example, if a fifth-grade teacher is accommodating a student who is working at a third-grade level in most subject areas, a standardized test designed to measure the achievement of students in fifth grade hardly seems appropriate for this student. Using the fifth-grade test would likely frustrate the student immensely and tell the teacher what is already known -- that the student has not yet acquired the knowledge and skills that have been learned by most fifth-grade students.

The most important factor to consider in making decisions about appropriate test levels is the set of instructional objectives represented by the questions in the various levels of the test. The test level assigned to each student should be relevant to his or her individual stage of academic development in the areas to be tested. The goal should be to match as closely as possible the student's current curriculum experience with the test tasks. The single test level that yields the most reasonable match is probably the most appropriate to use.

The difficulty of the questions is a second factor that could be considered in selecting test levels for students. The level of the test battery that is finally selected should present tasks that are challenging but, for the most part, within the capabilities of the student. Difficulty can be judged subjectively by examining the content of the tests in the levels under consideration.

Only a few students, if any, in a particular classroom are likely to need individualized or "out-of-level" testing. Of those who do, most will need a lower test level rather than a higher one. Although the tests at each level are designed to measure accurately throughout a broad range of achievement, for a few exceptional students, the tests for their grade level may be too easy. Consequently, the achievement levels of these students may be underestimated unless a higher test level is selected for them. Students who generally obtain extremely high developmental scores (e.g., grade equivalents) in most test areas, compared with their classmates, are the most likely candidates for a higher-level test. For them, their growth in the past year will be underestimated and their actual developmental level will not be readily apparent.

Appropriate school policies and careful teacher judgments about the use of out-of-level testing can help to maximize the instructional benefits of standardized achievement testing. The assignment of test levels to individual students requires considerable judgment that will likely improve with experience. Most teachers become comfortable with out-of-level testing through experimentation and gradual implementation over two or three years of testing. A beginning step involves testing all students "on level" except for those whose overall developmental level differs markedly from their actual grade level. Eventually individualized testing might be extended to improve measurement for students at other developmental levels as well.

Testing English Language Learners (ELL)

When the ITBS or ITED is given to students district-wide, additional decisions sometimes need to be made about testing English Language Learners, those whose first language is not English. These students should be tested for the same reasons that other students are tested: to obtain achievement information for making instructional decisions about them, to monitor their year-to-year progress in each of several areas of the curriculum, and to contribute to grade-group assessment information that is needed for a variety of purposes at the district level. Beyond the needs established by the local school district, there is a need to test all students in order for the district and state to comply with certain federal legislation, such as Title I.

A first decision to make about an ELL is whether to administer the ITBS/ITED at all. Districts should follow the guidelines provided on the website of the Iowa Department of Education.

When accommodations seem to be needed for testing an ELL, any of several might be considered. Which accommodations to use should be determined by considering the ones used in day-to-day instructional activities or classroom assessments. In no case should an accommodation be used for the first time with a student during the administration of the ITBS or ITED. Some accommodations that are used with ELLs include:

• allowing extra time to complete the test.
• allowing the use of a translation dictionary during testing.
• reading parts or all of the test. (This should not be done with tests of reading vocabulary or reading comprehension.)
• providing word pronunciations or word meanings when such help does not interfere with the subject matter or skills being tested. (Offering meanings of science terms used on a science test would not be appropriate.)
• a combination of the above.

The purpose of testing should be to obtain information that will be useful for making instructional decisions and determining the extent of student progress in the curriculum of the school. Accommodations should only be used when they help to reduce the effect of the student's English language deficits that would interfere with obtaining accurate information about the student's achievement. When selected properly, the use of accommodations can still permit the interpretation of the student's percentile ranks and grade equivalents in the same manner in which they are interpreted for others.