Resources/Recursos

This publication highlights collaborative partnerships between WIDA and Indigenous communities, focusing on efforts to revitalize and sustain Indigenous languages and cultures. Indigenous experts and WIDA staff share their insights on equitable, community-driven initiatives that enhance language development, assessment, and educational opportunities for Indigenous learners.

Released January 2025

This report details the development of a new scoring rubric grounded in the WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework, 2020 Edition. This new rubric will be used for scoring responses to the writing tasks on WIDA ACCESS Online and WIDA ACCESS Paper in 2025-26, and the future revised WIDA Screener Online and WIDA Screener Paper.

Released August 2024

This report shares findings from the Standards Implementation Study (Sep 2022-Feb 2024). The report explores the current status of the implementation of the WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework, 2020 Edition across layers of the educational system, primarily through the perceptions of teachers, administrators, and policy makers. It identifies key educator and systems-level practices that support or hinder successful implementation; and identifies potentials and needs areas for additional resource development and continued research.

Published: May 2024
Author: Hannah Park

Released May 2024

This Technical Report describes a validation study of the newly developed WIDA ACCESS writing scoring scale by examining its feasibility in differentiating student ability and practical scoring use. TR-2024-1.

Published: April 2024
Author: Ping-Lin Chuang
Additional authors: Mark Chapman, Kyoungwon Bishop, Ahyoung Alicia Kim

Released April 2024

This report examines English learners’ testing, proficiency, and growth during the six most recent academic years (2018-2023) to shed light on the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on English learners’ educational outcomes. It provides descriptive evidence on disparities in outcomes within WIDA's English learner population, with substantial average differences in outcomes between English learners identified as Hispanic compared to non-Hispanic ELs. Findings show that these disparities are persistent and have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Published April 2024
Authors: Glenn Poole, Narek Sahakyan

Released April 2024

This report describe how WIDA applied Differential Item Functioning analysis among multiple disability groups of our Alternate ACCESS Field Test items in 2023.

Released December 2023

This report describes a research study conducted by WIDA to link scores on the WIDA MODEL Online tests of Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). The results of the study are cut scores for each of the four language domain tests that are recommended for classifying test takers according to the levels of the CEFR.

Released December 2023

Alternate ACCESS for ELLs technical reports provide evidence for validity and reliability of Alternate ACCESS for ELLs and support intended uses, interpretations and decisions made with the test.

This is the redacted report for the 2022-2023 administration of Alternate ACCESS for ELLs. Item information is removed from the report.

Released August 2023

ACCESS for ELLs Online technical reports provide evidence for validity and reliability of ACCESS for ELLs Online and support intended uses, interpretations, and decision made with the test. This is the redacted report for the 2022-2023 administration of ACCESS for ELLs Online without item information.

Released June 2023

ACCESS for ELLs Paper technical reports provide evidence for validity and reliability of ACCESS for ELLs Paper and support intended uses, interpretations, and decision made with the test. This is the redacted report for the 2022-2023 administration of ACCESS for ELLs Paper without item information.

Released June 2023

This research project explored the patterns of district-level ELL “growth” for the 2007-2011 time period and identified the existence of “high-flying” and “low-cruising” districts within ACCESS for ELLs in terms of ELL growth.

Published May 2013
Author: Narek Sahakyan

Released May 2023

This report ​examines English learner testing, proficiency, and growth in the years surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. This research builds on an October 2021 report on the impact of the pandemic, and includes data from the 2021-22 ACCESS for ELLs test administration. Findings indicate that in some grades and language domains EL's average proficiency and growth have returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, for most grades and language domains the evidence points to a continuing impact of COVID-19 on English learners’ English language development.

Published April 2023
Author: Narek Sahakyan, Glenn Poole

Released April 2023

This report describes how different student ability restrictions may affect item characteristics in the ACCESS multistage adaptive testing, and presents options for item administration in field testing.

Released April 2023

In this study, completed for the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning, we explore the perceptions, experiences and decision-making of 13 parents of young multilingual children, ages birth to 5 years. The focus revolves around children’s language learning and development, family engagement practices and children’s participation in early care and education (ECE) programs.

Published 2020

Released May 2022

Motivated by findings of a 2018 WIDA report pointing to large overlap between ELs with Individualized Education Program (IEP) designations and those ELs who could be identified as LTELs, this study further focuses on these dual-identified students. Grouping ELs by ever-IEP (i.e., being assigned an IEP at any point in the longitudinal record) and never-IEP status, we compare these two subgroups’ English language growth trajectories across time. Our findings show consistent trends of differential growth and reclassification rates for these two subgroups.

Published November 2021 
Authors: Narek Sahakyan, Glenn Poole

Released November 2021

This report examines English learners’ (EL) testing, proficiency and growth in the academic years of 2018–19, 2019–20 and 2020–21, using population-level data from ACCESS for ELLs Online, administered across the WIDA Consortium to students identified as ELs. The objective of the report is to shed light on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on ELs’ educational outcomes.

October 2021 
Authors: Narek Sahakyan, H. Gary Cook

Released October 2021

The purpose of this technical report is to describe the 2020 content refreshment and field test of WIDA MODEL Online tests for grades 1–12.

Released May 2021

Technology-enhanced items (TEIs) are innovative, computer-delivered test items that are more authentic and interactive than traditional multiple-choice items (MCIs). This study examines the performance of grades 1–12 English learners on TEIs compared to MCIs on the reading domain of ACCESS for ELLs Online.

Published December 2020 
Authors: Ahyoung Alicia Kim, Rurik L. Tywoniw, Mark Chapman

Released December 2020

This report discusses an interdisciplinary and interorganizational endeavor to support the science education of multilingual youth: the Making Science Multilingual program. More specifically, the report addresses the rationale for the program, milestones it accomplished, resources it required, and challenges it faced.

Published November 2020 
Authors: Daniella Molle, Weiqiong Scarlett Huang

Released November 2020

This technical report aids WIDA Consortium members and stakeholders in producing imputed overall composite scale scores and proficiency levels for students who are missing scores in one or two domains due to a disability. 

Published September 2020 
Author: Narek Sahakyan

Released September 2020