Traficante, A. L. (2020). Predicting middle and high school students with disabilities’ change in grades and state test performance associated with their accommodations (Publication No. 27949942) [Doctoral dissertation, North Carolina State University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2400696924

North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC); ProQuest document ID: 2400696924

At least 29 academic accommodations, including 14 for classroom instruction and 15 that could be used during assessments, were separately identified for this longitudinal analysis. This summary emphasized the assessment accommodations: breaks during testing, dictated response to scribe, extended time, mark answer in test booklet, modified tests, pair visual and verbal directions, paper and pencil testing, portable devices, proof reading checklist, separate setting, teacher check for understanding, teacher praise, test checklist, text-to-speech device/software, word bank, and word processing (for writing).

A total of 320 students participated from across grades 6 through 12 at a public charter school (enrolled by lottery) in a suburb in North Carolina (U.S.) in the 2017–2018 school year. The participants qualified for these data analyses if they had sufficient academic records including class grades and state assessment scores. For this longitudinal study, student data were included from across each student's academic career between grade 6 and grade 12. One hundred fifty-eight (158) students had mental health diagnoses, and 109 students (33%) were receiving special education services. Special education disability categories were represented by various proportions of the participants: autism (8%), emotional disability (<1%), intellectual disabilities (3%), other health impairment (14%), specific learning disabilities (9%), and visual impairment (<1%). Participants' demographics were also reported, including age, sex (male/female), and race/ethnicity.

Extant score data were analyzed from the 2017–2018 administration of North Carolina’s end-of-grade (EOG) assessments in grades 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 in mathematics, reading, and science (from one school district). Student participants' academic records were also examined for report card grades in mathematics, reading, and science in grades 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.

For students with various disabilities who received accommodations, although they tended to achieve lower than average initial math and reading course grades, their grades increased to higher than average over time. However, students with disabilities—including students with mental health impairments—who received accommodations tended to persist in significantly lower than average math and reading scores on state assessments. Further analysis of potential effects of specific accommodations during state assessments yielded that extended time was linked with lower math scores in grade 6, and with lower science scores in grade 8, and that oral delivery was not significantly predictive of higher assessment scores in math, reading, or science. For the school population of special education students in grades 6–12, the prevalence of several individual instructional and assessment accommodations were reported; assessment accommodations included separate test setting (90%), extended time (80%), read aloud (32%), pencil and paper testing in a digital testing environment (31%), breaks during testing (15%), dictated response (7%), and test checklists (5%). Further information on assignment of individual accommodations for the students with various mental health diagnoses and disability categories was also reported. Limitations of the study were reported, and future research directions were suggested.