Publications & Resources

Language Accommodations for English Language Learners in Large-Scale Assessments: Bilingual Dictionaries and Linguistic Modification

Dec 2005

Jamal Abedi, Mary Courtney, James Mirocha, Seth Leon and Jennifer Goldberg

This study focused on four issues concerning the use of accommodation for ELL students: validity, effectiveness, differential impact, and feasibility. The study investigated the following questions: 1. Do accommodation strategies help reduce the performance gap between ELL and non-ELL students? (Effectiveness) 2. Do accommodation strategies impact the performance of non-ELL students on content-based assessments? (Validity) 3. Do student background variables impact performance on the accommodated assessments? (Differential impact) 4. Are accommodations easy to implement or use? (Feasibility) Results from each question are reported in the study.

Abedi, J., Courtney, M., Mirocha, J., Leon, S., & Goldberg, J. (2005). Language accommodations for English language learners in large-scale assessments: Bilingual dictionaries and linguistic modification (CSE Report 666). Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST).