Improving testing for English language learners

Preface

1. Purpose and Overview

2. Changing Demographics in a Testing Culture: Why This Issue Matters

Demographics and School Policy

Demographics Snapshot

An Educational Policy Snapshot

ELLs: A Heterogeneous Population

Culture and Learning

Culture and Assessment

The Educational Assessment of English Language Learners

Tests of English Language Proficiency

Large-scale Academic Achievement Assessments

3. The Past as Preparation: Measurement, Public Policy, and Implications for Access

A Brief History of Large-scale Achievement Testing

Development of Measurement Theory Models

Reliability to Multidimensional Item Response Theory

A Changing View of Test Validity

Fifty Years of Federal Policy Regarding Equity and the Use of Achievement Testing

ESEA: Full Inclusion, Disaggregated Reporting, and Beyond

Other Federal Influences

Building Assessments to be More Accessible for ELLs

Conceptual Underpinnings

Developing Accessible Tests

Estimating Levels of Access

4. Getting Started: Issues of Participation, Alignment, and Validating Access with Test Specifications

Participation in Test Development

Expert Participation in Test Development

Student Participation in Small Sample Pilots and Large Sample Field Tests

Test Specifications and Content Validity

Components of Test Specifications

Documenting Content Validity for English Language Learners: The Access Specifications Package

Alignment Considerations

Overview

Alignment and English Language Learners

5. Providing the Foundation of Principled Test Construction: Maintaining the Integrity of the Item Targets

Overview

Overview of Access and Item Development

The Centrality of Item Targets: Clearly Defining Intended Knowledge and Skills

Development and Completion of Access-based Item Templates

6. Access-based Item Development

Contextual Factors

Culturally broad experiences

Making Expectations Clear and Explicit

Prior Learning Expectations

Structural Factors

Simple Language Structures

Vocabulary

Effective Visuals

Item Format

Text Amount

Tools

Impact of Home Language

A Note about Rubrics

7. Tools, Test Forms, and Reviews

Tools

Text Supports

Manipulatives

Content-based Resources

Activities

Form Considerations

Choosing Items

Plain Language Forms

Computer-based Testing

L1 Form Considerations

Using Portfolios

Reviews

Internal Reviews

Fairness Reviews

Putting It All Together

8. In What Language Should English Language Learners Be Tested?

Defining ELLs

Variation Among ELLs

Patterns of Language Proficiency

Additional Sources of Linguistic Differences

Limitations of Official Definitions of "ELL"

Section Summary

Classifying ELLs

Schooling Background

Defining and Assessing Language Proficiency

Literacy and Academic Language as Part of Language Proficiency

A Modern View of Language Proficiency: Communicative Competence

Limitations of Mandated English Language Development Tests

Section Summary

Testing ELLs

Limitations of Testing ELLs in English

Limitations of Testing ELLs in L1

Major Challenges in the Selection of Language for Testing ELLs

Section Summary

Future Directions

Local Specificity of Testing Models

Optimum Number of Items as Testing Accommodation

9. Other Relevant Accommodations and Pretest Support

Promising Administration Accommodations

Extra Time

Small Group

Oral Administration

Language Liaison

Promising Response Accommodations

Written Home Language or Code-switching

Oral in English, the Home Language, or Code-switching

Demonstrated or Modeled Response

Pretest Support

Classroom Support

Family Assessment Night

10. Proper Assignment of Accommodations to Individual Students

Key Assignment Considerations

Student Factors

Accommodations

Capacity

Defining the Task

Policy-based Approaches

Research-based Approaches

Operational and Prototypical Systems

Guidance Models

Research-based Standardized Data Collection and Assignment Systems

Implications

11. Scoring Considerations for English Language Learners

Issues Which Impact Scoring

Linguistic Considerations Influenced by the Home Language

Cultural Considerations

Language Acquisition Issues

Access-based Scorer Training

Scoring Process Considerations

12. Selected Technical Considerations

Developing an Interpretable Research Agenda for Documenting Validity

Validation Design Model

Research Design Considerations

Selected Quantitative Approaches

Modeling Relationships of Variables: Selected Methods

Modeling Data from Continuous and Categorical Variables

Modeling Frequency Data from Categorical Variables

Comparison of Groups and Treatments: Selected Methods

Comparison of Test Score Level Data

Differential Item Functioning

Other Methods for Analyzing Items

Comparison of Model Structures

Qualitative Approaches

Tryouts and Pilots

Cognitive Labs

Comparability Considerations

Defining Comparability

Analyzing Construct Equivalence

Analyzing Score Equivalence

References

Index