Enhancing the accessibility of chemistry assessment for multilingual learners: Understanding challenging features in assessment items

Amid the increasing diversity in U.S. education, including a growing population of multilingual learners, this study aims to contribute practical insights aimed at improving the accessibility of chemistry assessments by addressing the language barrier. The study’s rationale revolves around operationalization and implementation of a novel framework, Equitable Framework for Classroom Assessments (EFCA). This framework is applied specifically to general chemistry assessment items with the goal of fostering inclusivity and ensuring a more accurate evaluation of multilingual learners. This study sheds light on the challenges faced by multilingual learners when reading assessment items, recognizing the various struggles with language barriers that impede their effective demonstration of content knowledge. Multilingual learners, representing diverse linguistic backgrounds, were engaged in one-on-one retrospective interviews to identify features of assessment items that they found challenging on the topics of limiting reactant and percent yield. The results identify several challenging features, including elevated vocabulary, irrelevant background information, complex sentence structures, lack of scaffolding and unnecessary contextualization, all of which frequently hindered participants’ comprehension. The knowledge gained from this study provides instructors with valuable insights to enhance the design of exam items. By recognizing and avoiding the specific types of challenging features, instructors can contribute to a more equitable and accessible assessment experience for multilingual learners.