Accommodation Study

- Research Question

- Methodology

- Research Findings

- Literature Review

Quality Indicators Study

Postsecondary Study

Project Staff

Reference Materials

Interdisciplinary Human Development Institute

Introduction to Accommodation Study

With the enactment of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) in 1990, Kentucky began a statewide assessment to include all students in school-accountability testing.  Students with disabilities were included in either the general assessment, with or without accommodations, or were included in the alternate assessment for students with significant cognitive disabilities.  Many students are participating in various education reforms, but little information is known about how these reforms are improving a student’s educational experience.  In this study, we are particularly interested in looking at how students who are deaf-blind participate in the general assessment with accommodations.         

There are a variety of accommodations available to students who are deaf-blind.  However, little is known about which are most effective for these students, or how these accommodations are used during instruction and testing. Our research is an attempt to understand how accommodations for students with deaf-blindness, participating in general assessments, are determined, implemented, and with what result.  Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana are the states participating in the study.

Information on accommodations was obtained through a variety of methods, including interviews, observations, and IEP analyses.  So far, six students who participated in general assessments with accommodations were interviewed about their educational experiences (e.g., which accommodations are helpful, which are not?).  The parents of each student were also interviewed, along with the students' general and special education teachers, to further complete the picture of each student's educational experience.  In addition to conducting interviews,  students were observed in the classroom environment and during a portion of the administration of each state's large-scale accountability test).  The last step in our data collection included an analysis of each student's IEP to determine if the data gathered through interviews and observations corresponded with the information provided in each student's IEP (i.e., was the student receiving the accommodations listed in his/her IEP; are there any discrepancies between the accommodations observed or reported to be used and what was stated in the IEP?).

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