Bilingual test as a test accommodation to determine the mathematics achievement of mainstream students with limited english proficiency

Purpose – This study aims to investigate the validity of using bilingual test to measure the mathematics achievement of students who have limited English pro? ciency (LEP). The bilingual test and the English-only test consist of 20 computation and 20 word problem multiple-choice questions (from TIMSS 2003 and 2007 released items. The bilingual test consists of items in Malay and English languages. The English teachers classi? ed their students into LEP and non-LEP groups. Methodology – A total of 2,021 LEP and 2,747 non-LEP students from 34 schools were identi? ed. Spiral administration was employed. A total of 2,399 students sat for the bilingual test and 2,369 for the English-only test. The scores were linked using RAGE-RGEQUATE version 3.22. Findings – Findings revealed that in the word problem testlet, the bilingual test was one unit easier for LEP students, probably indicating that the Malay language adaptation assisted them. For the non-LEP students, the bilingual version did not provide any added advantage to them as they did not show elevated achievement score. Signi?cance – This study indicates bilingual test can be an appropriate test accommodation that validly measures both LEP and non-LEP students’ mathematics achievement in countries where English is not the native language but is used as the instructional language.