Research Findings: Is extra time "fair"?

Empirical research studies on extended test time for students with learning disabilities have shown that:

• Students with learning disabilities make statistically significant gains in their test scores when provided with extended test time.
• Performance of students with learning disabilities under extended time mimics the performance of students without learning disabilities under standard time.
• Students without learning disabilities do not show statistically significant improvement in their test scores when provided with extended test time.

These results have been replicated numerous times and seem to indicate that providing students with learning disabilities extended test time allows them the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned rather than providing them an advantage over students without disabilities.  Additionally, since students without learning disabilities do not make significant improvement in their test scores when allowed extended time, we can conclude that these students’ relative test scores are not compromised by allowing learning disabled students extra time.