In this experimental study, 20 multiple-choice test items from the Massachusetts Grade 5 science test were linguistically simplified, and original and simplified test items were administered to 310 English learners (ELs) and 1,580 non-ELs in four Massachusetts school districts. This study tested the hypothesis that specific linguistic features of test items contributed to construct-irrelevant variance in science test scores of ELs. Simplifications targeted specific linguistic features, to identify those features with the largest impacts on ELs’ test performance. Of all the linguistic simplifications used in this study, adding visual representations to answer choices had the largest positive effect on ELs’ performance. These findings have significant implications for the design of multiple-choice test items that are fair and valid for ELs.

中文翻译：

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针对英语学习者的针对性的科学测试项目的语言简化

在这项实验研究中，对马萨诸塞州5年级科学考试中的20个多项选择题进行了语言简化，并对马萨诸塞州四个学区的310名英语学习者和1,580名非学习者进行了原始和简化的测试。这项研究检验了以下假设：测试项目的特定语言特征会导致EL的科学测试分数中与结构无关的差异。简化针对特定的语言功能，以识别对EL测试性能影响最大的那些功能。在这项研究中使用的所有语言简化中，添加视觉表示来回答选择对EL的性能产生最大的积极影响。这些发现对设计合理且对EL有效的多项选择测试项目具有重要意义。