Mariano, G., Tindal, G., Carrizales, D., & Lenhardt, B. (2009). Analysis of teacher accommodation recommendations for a large-scale test (Technical Report No. 0905). University of Oregon, Behavioral Research and Teaching. http://www.brtprojects.org/publications/technical-reports

Technical Report 0905

Teacher decision-making processes, and their applications to specific student case examples, were examined. The accommodations identified were various, and included presentation accommodations, presentation equipment accommodations, response accommodations, setting accommodations, and scheduling accommodations.

The participants were 38 teachers involved in accommodations decision-making from three states—Alaska, Oregon, and West Virginia (U.S.)—and from across over 12 districts in urban, rural, and suburban areas. Most were part of the special education programs in their schools, although 3 identified as teachers without more detail. The teachers worked at various grade levels, some across all grade levels. Additional participant demographic data were reported.

The sets of identified accommodation recommendations for each of two student case examples comprised the dependent variable.

The results include a comparison of the accommodations recommendations made by participant groups using two different decision-making models: the manual published by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the interactive online Assessment Decision-making Support System (ADSS). The overall number of accommodations, as averaged for each case example (students named Sarah and Daniel), did not differ between the manual and the online guides. However, the types of accommodations recommended differed, in that the group using the online model recommended significantly more presentation accommodations on average than the group using the print manual model. Additionally, the average amount of time that each group took to complete the decision-making process for each student did not differ significantly between models. The implications of the findings are detailed, including indicating that teachers need more training and additional tool development for improving familiarity of accommodations.