The effects of testing accommodations on students' performances and reactions to testing.

This study examined the effects of testing accommodations on students' test performances and reactions to the use of testing accommodations. Participants (N = 170) were fourth- and eighth-grade students, with and without disabilities. All students were administered, with and without accommodations, equivalent forms of widely used math and reading tests. Students completed a questionnaire to summarize their reactions to the use of accommodations. The findings indicated testing accommodations overall had a positive impact on students' individual reading and math scores. Furthermore, testing accommodations had a differential positive effect on reading scores for students with disabilities compared to students without disabilities. The relationship between students' perceptions of testing accommodations and the effects of testing accommodations on their test performances was not significant, although most students had positive perceptions of testing accommodations. Students perceived the provision of accommodations as fair for students without disabilities and more fair for students with disabilities. These findings are interpreted within a validity framework and contribute to a greater understanding of testing accommodations by integrating information concerning effects on scores and consequential effects on test-takers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification, accommodation, and success of students with learning disabilities in nursing education programs

Few studies have addressed the issue of nursing students with learning disabilities, although students with both identified and undiagnosed learning disabilities are pursuing nursing education. Legal mandates concerning these students impact nursing programs and faculty. To reduce the risk of discrimination litigation, nursing education programs need to establish educational strategies to promote these students' success. The purpose of this research was to discover the extent to which Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Associate Degree of Nursing programs in one southeastern state admit, identify, and graduate nursing students with learning disabilities, and to identify accommodations provided by these programs to promote success among this student population. Of the 54 programs surveyed, 45 responded. Almost 50% indicated that their program had admitted nursing students with learning disabilities and one-third reported graduating students with learning disabilities. Enrolled students with undiagnosed learning disabilities were identified during their course of studies by both faculty members and by students themselves. The most frequently reported accommodations for students were counselors, tutors, tape-recorded lectures, and computer access. As the number of students with learning disabilities seeking post-secondary education increases, nursing programs and nurse educators will be involved with greater numbers of students needing educational accommodations.     

The influence of test familiarity and student disability status upon teachers' judgments of students' test performance.

Two questions motivated this study: (a) Does test familiarity influence teachers' judgments of their students' test performance? and (b) Does the disability status of students influence their teachers' judgments? Teachers (n=19) judged item performances for one student with disabilities and one student without disabilities (n pairs=19) from their fourth-grade classrooms. Teachers made judgments using (a) a mathematics test from the research version of the TerraNova CTBS Multiple Assessments edition, which is similar to the large-scale achievement test administered in numerous states, and (b) classroom-based math tests. Judgment accuracy was higher (a) on classroom tests and (b) for students without disabilities. Among less accurate judgments, teachers consistently underestimated the performances of students with disabilities. Students with disabilities performed lower on both types of tests. Student test performance accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in teacher judgment accuracy. Implications of these findings for future research and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal interactions with individuals presenting with and without physical disability.

Examined actual language behavior directed toward individuals with and without apparent disabilities in a standardized but naturalistic setting. Four experimenters (2 male and 2 female) requested directions to the bookstore from a total of 160 college students on a university campus. Each experimenter portrayed a student with a disability using a wheelchair and a student without a disability. Conversations were surreptitiously recorded, and verbal interaction patterns were analyzed. Significant differences were observed on all dependent variables, word counts, frequency of interrogatives, and use of locator words. Findings suggest that individuals with a disability are addressed differently than those without disabilities, and provide limited behavioral replication of research documenting differential responses of college students to persons with and without disabilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychometric testing and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities.

Addresses the legal and psychometric issues related to nondiscrimination in employment testing for persons who have disabilities. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended; the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; and psychometric literature on nondiscriminatory testing have introduced and extended the concept from the federal government to the private sector. The comparability of results on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and Graduate Record Examinations, when accommodations are made in the testing process for persons with hearing, vision, and physical impairments and learning disabilities, were examined by the Educational Testing Service and reported by W. W. Willingham et al (1988). Test timing appears to be the critical accommodation for these tests. Testing accommodations are discussed in terms of testing medium, time limits, and test content. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Score comparability of a state mathematics assessment across students with and without reading accommodations.

This study investigated the factorial invariance of a fourth-grade state mathematics assessment across groups of general education students and students with learning disabilities with and without reading accommodations. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the fit of a 2-factor model to each of the 3 groups. In addition to the overall fit of this model, several levels of constraint were investigated. Invariance across the 3 groups was supported for factor loadings and intercepts. However, invariance of the factor covariances across the general education group and the groups of students with learning disabilities was not supported. Because of the implications for aggregating reported scores, further research is needed into the relationship between the factors in the different groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child custody evaluations when one divorcing parent has a physical disability.

Objective: To explore how parents' physical disability status might impact the process of divorce-related child custody evaluations and custody decisions, the level of training received by psychologists regarding assessment of parents with physical disabilities, and whether psychologists recognize that testing persons with physical disabilities requires specialized knowledge. Study Design: Survey mailed in 4 waves. Participants: 206 child custody evaluators (31% response rate). Outcome Measures: A survey regarding custody evaluations, a custody questionnaire, evaluation practices, education and training regarding disability, demographics, and a question about the purpose of the study. Results: Almost 70% had performed ≥1 child custody evaluation involving a parent with a physical disability. Over 85% of participants reported no training with regard to such evaluations, and 49% reported no training regarding any disability issues. 65% stated they would use the same tests without modifications, regardless of disability status of the parent. Conclusions: Recommendations include mandated training on disability for child custody evaluators, graduate training on disability accommodations in assessment, specifying conditions when evaluating parents with disabilities, more information regarding accommodations in custody evaluations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lawyers with ADHD: The special test accommodation controversy.

As a psychologist, you may be asked to provide a university or professional licensing board with recommendations concerning special test accommodations for a student you diagnosed with a learning problem. In this article, the author discusses experience consulting with states administering the bar examination to law graduates diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder who requested test accommodations; this experience illustrates the controversies surrounding this issue. Psychologists' recommendations for test accommodations are too often based on incomplete evaluations with unclear rationale for their support. Test agencies lack research to support their concern that validity is altered when test accommodations are granted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning the spelling of strange words in Dutch benefits from regularized reading.

In 2 experiments, the authors tested the effect of 2 types of reading on the spelling memory of strange or sound-spelling inconsistent words in Dutch students with and without learning disabilities: standard reading and regularized reading. Standard reading refers to reading the word the way it has to be read. Regularized reading refers to reading a sound-spelling inconsistent word as if it is sound-spelling consistent. In Experiment 1, both groups showed a short-term effect. Shortly after training, all students who participated in the regularized-reading condition showed better spelling performance than students who took part in a standard-reading condition. One week after training, spelling knowledge of students without learning disabilities appeared to be more stable than that of students with learning disabilities. In Experiment 2, only students with learning disabilities participated. The results reveal that more training substantially enhanced spelling performance in the long term, and repetition of the regularized word was even more effective. A recurrent network account served as the guiding principle to explain the results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coping style and personal responsibility as factors in the perception of individuals with physical disabilities by Chinese international students.

This study examined coping style and personal responsibility as factors influencing the perceptions of Chinese international students regarding people with physical disabilities. Sixty Chinese international students were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions (optimistic-not responsible, optimistic-responsible, pessimistic-not responsible, and pessimistic-responsible), and then asked to view a videotape of an interview with a Chinese international student in a wheelchair who assumed one of the four roles listed above. After viewing the tape, the students were asked to complete the Semantic Differential Scale and the Subject Rating Scale. The ANCOVA results indicated that the optimistic-not responsible condition resulted in the most positive evaluations, with the optimistic-pessimistic variable being more potent than the responsible-not responsible variable. Implications for clinical practice and rehabilitation program development in Chinese communities are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Survey of expert opinion on intelligence and aptitude testing.

Psychologists and educational specialists with expertise in areas related to intelligence testing responded to a questionnaire dealing with a wide variety of issues constituting the IQ controversy. Overall, experts hold positive attitudes about the validity and usefulness of intelligence and aptitude tests. Tests are seen as adequately measuring most important elements of intelligence, although the tests are believed to be somewhat racially and socioeconomically biased. There is overwhelming support for a significant within-group heritability for IQ, and a majority of respondents feel that black-white and socioeconomic status IQ differences are also partially hereditary. Problems with intelligence tests are perceived in the influence of nonintellectual characteristics on test performance and in the frequent misinterpretation and overreliance on test scores in elementary and secondary schools. Despite these difficulties, experts favor the continued use of intelligence and aptitude tests at their present level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Chinese herbs: a clinical review of Astragalus, Ligusticum, and Schizandrae

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The objective structured clinical exam (OSCE) is increasingly being used to evaluate student clinical performance. However, scant literature exists pertinent to this approach in evaluating family medicine clerkship performance. In this study, we assess 8 years' experience with a family medicine clerkship OSCE. METHODS: Eight annual clerkship OSCEs and the performance of 696 students are described. Comparisons of faculty evaluation, written exam, and OSCE performance are made for 335 students. Post-OSCE student and faculty feedback regarding OSCE validity and utility is also presented. RESULTS: Student performance is highest in medical history taking and physical examination and lowest in information-sharing stations. OSCE results appear to be relatively consistent on a year-to-year basis. OSCE, faculty evaluation, and written exam results have low overall levels of correlation, particularly in assessing performance that differs substantially from the mean. Students and faculty agree that the OSCE experience reflects skills that students should possess, but there is less agreement that the OSCE reflects clerkship-related learning and actual student performance. Both students and faculty derive insight from the OSCE regarding the definition of specific learning needs. CONCLUSIONS: The family medicine clerkship OSCE we describe appears to provide consistent measures of student performance. Although content validity is high, further assessment is needed to assure construct validity. The OSCE experience provides students with a rich resource for defining clerkship-related learning needs. Study results strongly suggest that OSCEs, faculty evaluations, and written exams provide differing measures of student performance. The reasons for these differences merit further exploration.     

Disability and autonomy: Priming alternative identities.

Objective: Despite the broad stigmatization that people with disabilities experience, the ways they respond as targets of prejudice have received little attention in the psychological literature. The present study examined the reactions of college students with disabilities to being primed with different aspects of their identity and how individual differences in stigma consciousness moderate this effect. Design: After being primed with their identity as a person with a disability or a student, college students with disabilities (n = 116) completed measures of autonomy-related thoughts, help-seeking, and stigma consciousness. Results: Students primed with their disability status activated autonomy-related thoughts less than the participants primed with their student identity. Moreover, as predicted, the priming manipulation had a stronger impact for participants higher in stigma consciousness. Across all participants, greater activation of autonomy-related thoughts was associated with a lower likelihood of seeking help. Conclusion: Depending on the aspect of their identity that is most salient in a given context and their level of stigma consciousness, people with disabilities can access autonomy-related thoughts to a greater or lesser extent. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developing a Biodata Measure and Situational Judgment Inventory as Predictors of College Student Performance.

This article describes the development and validation of a biographical data (biodata) measure and situational judgment inventory (SJI) as useful predictors of broadly defined college student performance outcomes. These measures provided incremental validity when considered in combination with standardized college-entrance tests (i.e., SAT/ACT) and a measure of Big Five personality constructs. Racial subgroup mean differences were much smaller on the biodata and SJI measures than on the standardized tests and college grade point average. Female students tended to outperform male students on most predictors and outcomes with the exception of the SAT/ACT. The biodata and SJI measures show promise for student development contexts and for selecting students on a wide range of outcomes with reduced adverse impact. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alternative ways of analyzing effects of a short school break on students with and without disabilities.

Studied the effects of a 3-wk school break on the mathematics performance of students with and without disabilities. Ss were 84 students (aged 8–15 yrs) with mild disabilities and 44 students (aged 8–25 yrs) without disabilities in an urban elementary school in a southeastern state. Ss took the curriculum-based measurement (L. S. Fuchs, l986) of mathematics during the 3-wk periods before and after the 3-wk school winter break. Prebreak and postbreak performance scores showed that the Ss did not regress over the short break. Progress trends showed that Ss who were making gains before the break were negatively affected, and Ss with negative prebreak trends improved after the break. Both performance and progress should be considered when planning the school year. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Restructuring the Undergraduate Laboratory Instructional Process

There is little doubt that a laboratory experience can be a beneficial component of the undergraduate engineering learning process. Observing physical demonstrations of textbook and lecture information can enhance a student’s perception of a concept and produce clarity of key issues. Unfortunately, limitations often exist that constrain the developing laboratories and sometimes reducing the student’s experience to little more than performing “cookbook” experiments and copying previous lab reports; an exercise that benefits neither the instructor nor the student. This paper summarizes an alternative approach for undergraduate laboratory instruction that relies on the undergraduate students working in teams to design and conduct experiments. The instructor acts as mentor to a process that ensures a quality laboratory exercise without being the sole responsible party. The students’ learning is increased and the laboratory experience is enhanced due, in part, to the experiments being designed by students and for students; matching students’ needs, education, and interests with experiments. An additional benefit comes from participants being immersed into the concepts of experimental design and analysis using a team of peers.     

Disability and psychotherapy practice: Cultural competence and practical tips.

Persons with disabilities constitute the largest minority population within the United States, yet only recently has psychology entered the dialogue of treatment issues for this population beyond the traditional medical model. In this article the authors provide an overview of considerations for psychologists who work with clients presenting with disabilities. Specifically, we address conceptual models of disability and considerations for cultural competence for working with persons with disabilities. Within the cultural competence discussion, we include critical awareness and knowledge, skills development, and practice/applications; such as accessibility, consent forms and other handouts, the psychotherapy milieu, testing accommodations, and the importance of resources, which are provided in the Appendix. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting the Academic Performance of Construction Engineering Students by Teaching and Learning Approaches: Case Study

There are various teaching approaches that instructors may adopt in their quest to teach effectively, and students can choose from a range of learning approaches to help them achieve good grades. This study investigates the effectiveness of personal learning approaches adopted by undergraduates and the teaching approaches employed by instructors in the context of construction engineering courses. The research questions are as follows. (1)?What are the students’ learning approaches that lead to better academic achievement? (2)?What are the instructors’ teaching approaches that give rise to better academic achievement? The study also aims to construct a model to predict a student’s likely academic performance in a construction engineering course. The research design is a self-administered survey. Using a structured questionnaire consisting of questions relating to learning strategies and teaching approaches, data were collected from undergraduates who majored in construction engineering. Statistical analyses undertaken include Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression modeling. Pearson correlation analysis shows that both the Growing Teaching approach and the students’ Achieving Motive learning approach are significantly correlated with academic performance. A robust grade prediction model was developed, whereby a student’s grade in a construction engineering course may be predicted using one teaching approach (Growing Teaching) and three learning approaches (Achieving Motive, Achieving Strategy, and Deep Motive). To help students obtain higher grades in a construction engineering course, instructors should adopt the Growing Teaching approach, and students should adopt the Achieving Motive learning approach. Because students who adopt the Deep Motive learning approach are penalized with lower grades, it is recommended that instructors modify their teaching methods and approaches so that students do not take shortcuts in their learning without deeper regard for higher-order learning outcomes.     

Prediction of 4-year college student performance using cognitive and noncognitive predictors and the impact on demographic status of admitted students.

This study was conducted to determine the validity of noncognitive and cognitive predictors of the performance of college students at the end of their 4th year in college. Results indicate that the primary predictors of cumulative college grade point average (GPA) were Scholastic Assessment Test/American College Testing Assessment (SAT/ACT) scores and high school GPA (HSGPA) though biographical data and situational judgment measures added incrementally to this prediction. SAT/ACT scores and HSGPA were collected and used in various ways by participating institutions in the admissions process while situational judgment measures and biodata were collected for research purposes only during the first few weeks of the participating students’ freshman year. Alternative outcomes such as a self-report of performance on a range of student performance dimensions and a measure of organizational citizenship behavior, as well as class absenteeism, were best predicted by noncognitive measures. The racial composition of a student body selected with only cognitive measures or both cognitive and noncognitive measures under various levels of selectivity as well as the performance of students admitted under these scenarios is also reported. The authors concluded that both the biodata and situational judgment measures could be useful supplements to cognitive indexes of student potential in college admissions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)