A Meta-Analysis of Testing Accommodations for Students with Disabilities: Implications for High-Stakes Testing

Test accommodations are designed to ensure the comparability of test scores between students and their typically developing counterparts by eliminating as much construct-irrelevant variance and construct-irrelevant difficulty as possible. Although those involved in test creation endeavor to create tests with suitable accommodations for students with disabilities, there is lack of consensus regarding accommodation efficacy. Using meta-analysis and meta-regression to summarize previous research, this study examined whether test accommodations differentially boost test scores of students with disabilities, and whether accommodated conditions provided a more effective and valid assessment of students with disabilities. Results from the meta-analysis of 34 studies (119 effect sizes) lend support to the differential boost hypotheses, whereby students with disabilities (mean effect size = 0.30, k = 62, p \u3c 0.001) are positively impacted by test accommodations while their typically developing peers (mean effect size = 0.17, k = 57, p \u3c 0.001) gain little from test accommodations. Presentation assessment accommodations (mean effect size = 0.22, k = 41, p \u3c 0.001) had a small statistically significant impact on the performance of students with disabilities, while use of timing/scheduling accommodations (mean effect size = 0.47, k = 17, p \u3c 0.001) had a small, bordering on medium, statistically significant impact on these students. The effect for presentation accommodations intensified when narrowing the focus to students with learning disabilities (mean effect size = 0.36, k = 23, p \u3c 0.001) but not for timing/scheduling accommodations (mean effect size = 0.48, k = 13, p \u3c 0.001). Overall results for setting (k = 1) and response (k = 3) accommodations were not available as there were too few studies for an overall comparison. The results of meta-regression analyses examining the effects of assessment accommodations on test scores for students with disabilities showed that 42% of the heterogeneity in test score could be explained by an overall model examining population description, test characteristic, results dissemination, and researcher-manipulated (test accommodation effect size for students with disabilities) variables. Population description and test characteristic variable sets explained the greatest amounts of variability for mean increase in test score, R2=0.22 and R2 =0.35 respectively; researcher-manipulated variable (test accommodation) and research dissemination explained little variance, R2 =0.07 and R2 =0.01, respectively

Mental health interventions by lay counsellors: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective To investigate the effectiveness of community-based mental health interventions by professionally trained, lay counsellors in low- and middle-income countries. Methods We searched PubMed®, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PROSPERO and EBSCO databases and professional section publications of the United States National Center for PTSD for randomized controlled trials of mental health interventions by professionally trained, lay counsellors in low- and middle-income countries published between 2000 and 2019. Studies of interventions by professional mental health workers, medical professionals or community health workers were excluded because there are shortages of these personnel in the study countries. Additional data were obtained from study authors. The primary outcomes were measures of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and alcohol use. To estimate effect size, we used a random-effects meta-analysis model. Findings We identified 1072 studies, of which 19 (involving 20 trials and 5612 participants in total) met the inclusion criteria. Hedges' g for the aggregate effect size of the interventions by professionally trained, lay counsellors compared with mostly either no intervention or usual care was −0.616 (95% confidence interval: −0.866 to −0.366). This result indicates a significant, medium-sized effect. There was no evidence of publication bias or any other form of bias across the studies and there were no extreme outliers among the study results. Conclusion The use of professionally trained, lay counsellors to provide mental health interventions in low- and middle-income countries was associated with significant improvements in mental health symptoms across a range of settings