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The Use of Test Accommodations as a Gaming Strategy: A State-Level Exploration of Potential Gaming Tendencies in the 2007–2009 Period and Implications for Re-directing Research on Gaming Through Test Accommodations by Argun Saatcioglu, Thomas M. Skrtic & Thomas A. DeLuca — 2016The overuse of test accommodations (e.g., test readers, extra time, and calculators) for students with disabilities is a potential means of gaming the accountability system because it can inflate proficiency gains. However, no direct evidence on this problem exists, and findings on whether or not test accommodations improve test scores are persistently mixed. A key issue underlying both problems is the failure to account for contextual attributes. We propose students’ skill range—the breadth of knowledge and skills they acquire—as a fundamental contextual variable. A wider skill range implies a broader and thus more complex skillset. Under such conditions, more students with disabilities are likely to legitimately need test accommodations. Gaming is thus suspect when a high percentage of students with disabilities are given test accommodations and the skill range is narrow. Based on state-level panel data (2007–2009) for eighth graders, we find that states with a wider mathematics skill range indeed use test accommodations more commonly, and that under such conditions test accommodations do not necessarily result in greater proficiency gains, suggesting that gaming may be less likely in such states. Proficiency gains from test accommodations are greatest in states where the mathematics skill range is markedly narrower, yet a high percentage of students with disabilities are nonetheless given test accommodations. We offer a number of competing heuristic explanations of gaming and no-gaming under a wider set of combinations for skill range and test accommodations, which are testable in future research. We follow this with a discussion of broader implications for scholarship and practice.To view the full-text for this article you must be signed-in with the appropropriate membership. Please review your options below:
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- Argun Saatcioglu
University of Kansas
E-mail Author
ARGUN SAATCIOGLU is Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and (by courtesy) Sociology at the University of Kansas. He specializes in the study of educational inequality, educational governance, and school responses to reform initiatives. His recent work on school desegregation has appeared in Teachers College Record and DuBois Review: Social Science Research on Race. His research on school board governance has appeared in Sociological Inquiry and Leadership and Policy in Schools.
- Thomas Skrtic
University of Kansas
E-mail Author
THOMAS M. SKRTIC is Williamson Family Distinguished Professor of Special Education at the University of Kansas. His academic interests are classical pragmatism and democratic social reform, which inform his research on special education policy and politics. He has published work on these and related topics in several books and in journals such as Harvard Educational Review, Disability Studies Quarterly, Remedial and Special Education, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, and Learning Disability Quarterly.
- Thomas DeLuca
University of Kansas
E-mail Author
THOMAS A. DELUCA is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Kansas. His research focuses on four key areas: the politics of K–12 education finance and policy, the influence of empirical evidence on decision-making and resource allocation, and the structure and economics of K–12 educational organizations. His recent multistate K–12 school finance work has appeared in the Journal of Education Finance and ASBO’s School Business Affairs.
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