The Psychometric Characteristics of the Sat for Nine Handicapped Groups

This study examined the psychometric characteristics of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) administered under special conditions for nine handicapped groups. Information about test characteristics is central to judging the accuracy and fairness of scores from E.AT special administrations. Four psychometric characteristics were studied: level of test performance, test reliability, speededness, extent of unexpected differential item performance. Psychometric comparisons were made between a nonhandicapp(i sample and each of nine different handicapped classifications. These contrasts were carried out twice; that is, they were replicated across two forms of the same test. The use of two samples taking different forms served to increase confidence in the stability of results and their applicability to other forms of the SAT. Results of the study showed that visually impaired students and those with physical handicaps achieved mean scores generally comparable to students taking the SAT in national administrations. Learning disabled and hearing impaired students scored lower than their nondisabled peers. Differences between Verbal and Mathematical performance were also comparable to those for the nondisabled reference group in all but the hearing impaired-regular type test and visually impairedbraille test samples. 'leering impairedregular students scored higher on Mathematical than on Verbal relative to their nondisabled peers, while visually