Linguistic Influences on Cognitive Test Performance: Examinee Characteristics Are More Important than Test Characteristics

Abstract

Consideration of the influence of English language skills during testing is an understandable requirement for fair and valid cognitive test interpretation. Several professional standards and expert recommendations exist to guide psychologists as they attempt to engage in best practices when assessing English learners (ELs). Nonetheless, relatively few evidence-based recommendations for practice have been specified for psychologists. To address this issue, we used a mixed-effects modeling approach to examine the influences of test characteristics (i.e., test directions) and examinee characteristics (i.e., expressive and receptive language abilities) on cognitive test performance. Our results suggest that language abilities appear to have a significant influence on cognitive test performance, whereas test characteristics do not influence performance, after accounting for language abilities. Implications for practice include the assessment of expressive and receptive language abilities of EL students prior to administering, scoring, and interpreting cognitive test scores.