Teachers' knowledge of accommodations as a validity issue in high-stakes testing

The purpose of this survey pilot study was to determine how knowledgeable general education and special education teachers are about allowable accommodations on statewide assessment tests and how accommodation choices influence the validity of decisions resulting from this assessment. Overall, only 21% of the respondents reported using the accommodations specified in the statewide testing manual. On the whole, teachers' knowledge of allowable accommodations was low (54.8%) and their knowledge didn't always translate into consistent action: The 4 accommodations teachers listed most often as ones they used for students taking the modified statewide assessment were also the 4 most listed modifications that teachers thought might have allowed an exempted student to participate in the statewide assessment. These initial survey findings support the call for renewed preservice/inservice measurement training to eliminate the differential exclusion and application of accommodations now found in the schools.