Dr. Stephanie Cawthon

For a second year, Walden University School of Psychology faculty member Dr. Stephanie Cawthon and Walden graduate students have conducted a study focused on improving education for the nation’s 70,000 deaf and hard-of-hearing students who receive special services.

Cawthon says the second annual National Survey of Assessments and Accommodations for Students Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, which was built on findings of the first survey, sought to provide

• Needed information about assessment practices with deaf and hard-of-hearing students
• Understanding of the factors that influence assessment choices
• Recommendations for best practices

The study also provided hands-on research training for Walden students DeAnna Axler, Nancy Beale, Rori Bell, Ivette Cruz, Matt Diggs, Deborah Eastwood, Susann Getsch, Yudy Kush, Audrey Lemasters, Craig Lynch, Wendy Moore, Theresa Reynolds, Towanna Rovenko, April Shaw, Sarah Shoemaker and Keith Wurtz.

Cawthon extends gratitude to those students and to survey participants. “A big thank you to all who participated in the study, especially members of the Walden community,” she says. “Your participation is the only way we can continue to develop a national perspective on how students who are deaf or hard of hearing participate in state assessments.”

This year, Walden named Cawthon one of 10 Faculty Excellence Awards recipients recognized for outstanding performance in service to the university through exemplary support of its mission and goals. The award designation came with a grant that supported the second survey. 

Cawthon also received one of four Extraordinary Faculty Awards for her dedication to social change, her commitment to her students, her advocacy on behalf of people with hearing loss, and her innovative contributions to education such as the online research lab, which facilitated the survey work and is now being expanded for wider use across disciplines.

Who Participated?
A total of 444 people responded to the survey. Teachers who participated in this year’s survey served more than 10,000 students across grades K–12. The majority (38 percent) of the study participants were from the South, followed by the Midwest and the West at just under 25 percent each, and the Northeast (16 percent).

About half were teachers of the deaf. Itinerant teachers (57) mainly served in mainstreamed settings. The remaining participants included special education teachers, school administrators and “others.”

Participation was roughly equal among three main educational settings: mainstream (36 percent), district/regional (36 percent) and schools for the deaf (26 percent).

Background of Study
Central to the survey were “alternate assessments” and “accommodations,” which refer to a range of changes designed to remove factors from tests that penalize students because of their disability. Cawthon says the goal for accommodations is to ensure tests measure content knowledge (target skill) not the ability to take the test (access skill).

Accommodations categories were Extra Time, Small Groups, Test Items Read Aloud, Test Directions Interpreted, Test Items Interpreted, Student Signed Response and Simplified English.

In contrast, modified tests, including alternate assessments, change both the target skill and the access skill, Cawthon says. Deleting an item or changing an essay response into a multiple choice question would both qualify as examples of modifications that effectively change what is being measured by the assessment. Alternate assessments are, in essence, comprehensive modifications to the standardized test format.

Alternate assessments categories were Checklist of Knowledge or Skills Used as Alternative Assessment, Portfolio of Student Work Used as Alternative Assessment, Curriculum of Student Work Used as Alternative Assessment and Out of Level Alternative Assessment Used.

Teachers reported what accommodations their students used in statewide standardized assessments in the 2004–05 school year. Extra Time, Small Groups and Test Directions Interpreted were the most common. These were followed closely by Test Items Read Aloud or Test Items Interpreted. Few participants indicated that their students signed test responses or took a Simplified English version.

Fewer teachers had students participate in alternate assessments than in standardized tests with accommodations. Portfolio- and curriculum-based assessments were the most common alternate assessment formats (about one-third each). Checklists were used by 25 percent of the participants’ students, and Out of Level testing was used by less than 20 percent.  

Survey Observations
Cawthon offers these conclusions:

Teachers at the different educational settings do not differ on their perceived ease of use or validity of use for interpreted accommodations. This means there is no concern that teachers in different settings have different perspectives on the use of accommodations. Students should therefore have equal access to accommodations, all else held constant.

• Participants who thought each accommodation was easy to use tended to also think it was a valid accommodation. This may lead to the use of an accommodation not on the basis of policy or empirical evidence of validity, but on how easy it is to use.

• State policy does not appear to be driving the choice or use of an accommodation.

• Best practice recommendations are specific to the accommodation. For example: The survey results demonstrate three primary factors teachers consider when making a recommendation for having test items interpreted.
  

  
  
  

  • Study participants identified the student’s primary language as a top consideration when making a recommendation for interpreter services during testing.

  • The other most frequently cited considerations were the student’s academic level and the subject being tested. 

  • Participants reported feeling that interpreter services were warranted when a student is several levels behind in one or more academic levels such as reading and expressed greater concern for interpreter services on a reading comprehension test.

Work Continues
The third annual national survey, which Cawthon says looks at trends in assessment over time, is being conducted this fall, reflecting a shift from previous spring surveys in the hope that the new timing will be more convenient for participants. Results will be shared with the deaf-education field through publications, presentations and contacts with parent and other groups.

More Information
Visit www.dhh-assess-survey.org.

—By Darlene Bush Tucker

October Ponder front page