Testing Diverse Individuals Flashcards
At what level is it illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities?
Federal level
What is considered accommodating a reasonable amount when it comes to people with disabilities?
Depends and varies by person, test, situation, disability (ex: someone visually impaired should have good lighting/large printed font
True or False: Different administrations of the same test are equivalent to one another
False
What is the goal of reasonable accommodations?
To reflect the construct of interest, NOT the disability
What needs to be understood with creating reasonable accommodations (3)?
- need to be familiar with the purpose and intended use of the test
- need to understand the impact of modifications to test
- some tests have specifically been written for people with certain disabilities
True or False: The person with a disability is responsible for communicating their disability for proper accommodations
True
True or False: One test score is enough to diagnose someone with a disability
False
True or False: Tests can be used to screen for disabilities
True
What are some options for integrated assessments with disability diagnosis?
Combine test info with interviews, direct observations, or other methods
Define culture
Socially transferred behaviors, beliefs, and products of work within a particular population, community, or group of people
What does culture affect (within testing)?
- Behaviors (are you measuring the construct OR are you measuring cultural differences?)
- Responses (do they mean what we think they mean?)
How does culture affect assessment (3)?
- verbal communication (language, vocab, translation [“I feel blue” is not clear across cultures])
- nonverbal communication
- cultural differences in standards, experiences, expectations
Were historically early tests developed within multiple cultures or one culture? And what impact did it have?
One culture - this caused other cultures not to score well and results were interpreted negatively
Culture-specific tests belief
Tests are culturally specific and should only be used within the group developed in
Define culturally loaded
needing knowledge about a certain culture to be able to answer items correctly
What increases culture loading?
- verbally-oriented items
- written instructions/responses
- specific facts
What decreases cultural loading?
- nonverbal items
- oral instructions/responses
- abstract content
True or False: culture-specific and culture-fair tests predict the same thing
False
True or False: If a test shows mean differences between groups and is used for decision-making, fewer members of 1 group will be selected than the other
True
What are potential errors when translating tests?
- translations can change the meaning of an item or even entire test
- different cultures may have different response styles
- constructs may not mean the same things in different cultures
Is back-translation to verify the quality of a test enough?
No
What are some questions to be concerned with when it comes to measurement equivalence (3)?
- are constructs understood in the same way?
- are items understood in the same way?
- do items measure equally between groups?
True or false: mean differences mean the test is invalid or is intentionally biased
False
What are some potential explanations for mean differences?
- true differences on the construct
- failure to consider cultural difference in test development
- other factors (e.g. stereotype threat)
What solutions for mean differences are illegal with employment and education in the U.S.?
- adjusting scores
- considering culture when interpreting results
What is a pro and con with banding to adjust for mean differences?
Pro: Creates brackets (stanines or quartiles) to treat everyone within that bracket as having the same score
Con: lose some predictive power
Assume we want to know if a test is functioning equally well for different groups. What would we do?
A. Examine mean differences
B. Examine differences in variability
C. Test measurement equivalence
D. Test content validity
C. Test measurement equivalence
