The Effect of Format and Language on the Test Scores of Bilinguals: Are the Test Scores Obtained by Bilinguals Comparable to the Test Scores of U.s. Students for Whom the Tests Are Designed?

As American colleges become more diverse, cultural differences among students raise important concerns about large scale assessment of students whose primary language is not English. Are the scores obtained by these students comparable to the scores of U. S. students for whom the assessments are designed? Score comparability ensures that the meaning and interpretation of test scores are the same for all groups of students. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of lingual background and item format on the test performance of bilinguals. Contrary to what was expected, format and lingual background did not collectively affect the performance of bilinguals on the construction items to a larger extent than on multiple-choice items. The majority (88%) of the bilinguals used in this study were students born and schooled in Puerto Rico, where the constructed-response format is traditionally used to test students throughout their schooling. This study confirmed the findings of Cooley & Leinhart (as cited in O¿Leary, 2001) and O¿Leary (2001), that frequent exposure to a test format will make a difference to performance.