LSAC settles LSAT Disability Lawsuit Forum

[papercut]

Some research!

"Separate predictive validity analyses were conducted for test takers classified as having Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Learning Disabilities, Neurological Impairment, and Visual Impairment... Results suggest that LSAT scores earned under accommodated testing conditions that included extra testing time are not comparable to LSAT scorers earned under standard timing conditions as evidenced by a tendency of the former to overpredict FYAs. Results for individual groups were consistent with the overall group result."

http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED469183

Good catch. That's an LSAC report. Here's an updated version, full text. They give particular emphasis to extra time. The report says non-time accommodations preserve predictive validity, while time accommodations remove it.

http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source ... -09-01.pdf

Great pointer. I have no problem with non-time accommodations. I wonder how it's going to break down with time vs non-time accommodations in the years to come.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I want to see the result in practice. The basis for this suit was that legitimate needs weren't being addressed. I feel that was a disservice to people who had disabilities.
You guys are worried about the system being gamed, by why so much?
Shouldn't you worry about getting your own high score? If you can do that without extra time, this shouldn't affect you.

I guess I don't agree this will open the floodgates to many high scores until I actually see it happening.

I also don't think that high scores due to accommodations will mean someone will get low grades in law school. But I've never agreed with the idea that the LSAT predicts grades or performance.

I don't think that schools can ask about disabilities. People have to self-identify.

I guess it bothers me that people don't see this, in a large part, as an positive correction for people who have been wrongly denied extra time. It also bothers me that people want to judge for themselves who deserves extra time without any expertise and assume people don't really need it. That is exactly what LSAC was doing.

Maybe because I've been out of school for so long I have a different perspective.

Totally agree with all of this.

[Onomatopoeia]

I could not even sleep I'm so mad! Scores should be flagged. Grant the accommodations! But let the overlords at admissions interpret these Lsat scores as they must!

[LSAT Hacks (Graeme)]

Haus let me know my LSAC research report link is broken. TLS is displaying it incorrectly because it has brackets. I can't post it. But you can find the full text in google by searching this:

Predictive Validity of Accommodated LSAT Scores. Technical Report. LSAC Research Report Series.

It's the first result, a pdf.

[cotiger]

I want to see the result in practice. The basis for this suit was that legitimate needs weren't being addressed. I feel that was a disservice to people who had disabilities.
You guys are worried about the system being gamed, by why so much?
Shouldn't you worry about getting your own high score? If you can do that without extra time, this shouldn't affect you.

I guess I don't agree this will open the floodgates to many high scores until I actually see it happening.

I also don't think that high scores due to accommodations will mean someone will get low grades in law school. But I've never agreed with the idea that the LSAT predicts grades or performance.

I don't think that schools can ask about disabilities. People have to self-identify.

I guess it bothers me that people don't see this, in a large part, as an positive correction for people who have been wrongly denied extra time. It also bothers me that people want to judge for themselves who deserves extra time without any expertise and assume people don't really need it. That is exactly what LSAC was doing.

Maybe because I've been out of school for so long I have a different perspective.

Totally agree with all of this.

I've taken the LSAT, gotten a high score, and am going to T14 w $$$. It's not about that.

Regardless of your beliefs, it is a confirmed fact that LSAT predicts 1L grades.

If the accommodations were appropriate to the diagnosis like in Nony's fantasy where the time was matched to the disorder so that true ability was allowed to shine through and it had the same predictive quality, there wouldn't be a problem. However, time extensions reduce the predictive quality of the LSAT and, most importantly, overpredict 1L grades. That is, those with time accommodation on the LSAT do worse in law school than those who scored the same without time extensions. Law schools use the LSAT because it tells them if a student is likely to succeed at their school. It's absurd to treat them as equivalent tests and not require flagging.

I don't understand how you can argue that the time accommodations given are appropriate given the facts. Again, accommodations are FINE and would even be fine without flagging if they matched up with the level/type of disability. The particular accommodations that are used, though, do not equitably address the issue, as those (typically high SES kids) who have a diagnosis that give them extra time are actually advantaged (as evidenced by the overprediction) and on top of that are now not required to indicate that they are advantaged.

[Pneumonia]

Is there any info on how the accommodations are distributed? I think pretty clearly it's not a big deal to get a large print test book or to get extra space or similar, it's the time extension that is at issue.

I don't think there's any reason that "large print" style accommodations would predict any different than the standard test, and don't see any reason for it to be flagged either. This is making me wonder about what percentage of accommodations similarly don't impact predictive ability.

Flagging a "large print" score and not flagging an "extra time" score seem equally silly.

[90convoy]

Solution: Make test a lot harder and give 1 hour per section to everyone??? or unlimited time to everyone...LOL 180 becomes 94th percentile

Also...this will fuck people with low GPA because I'd imagine that schools will take that into account more

[nothingtosee]

I'd be interested the last five years of breakdown by number getting each accomodation and comparing this over the next five years. But I can't imagine lsac could/would release this.

[cotiger]

I'd be interested the last five years of breakdown by number getting each accomodation and comparing this over the next five years. But I can't imagine lsac could/would release this.

Well they did do that for 2002-2006.

Time-accommodated LSAT for ADHD had a nearly negligible 0.15 correlation with 1L grades, and 0.23 when taking LSAT/UGPA combined.
Time-accommodated LSAT for Learning Disorder had a 0.21 correlation with grades and 0.34 when combined with UGPA.

Non accommodated LSAT had a 0.33 correlation with grades and 0.46 when combined with UGPA.

Those are significant differences, especially for the ADHD accommodations.

And most important is the fact that time-accommodations overpredicted 1L grades significantly, with extra time due to ADHD and Learning Disorder overpredicting the most.

While accommodations that still used standard time showed reduced predictiveness compared to non-accommodated (0.25/0.38 correlations), it was not significantly biased in any particular direction. This means that while those tests didn't as accurately predict future grades, they still fairly represented the test-takers abilities when taken as a whole.

[Pneumonia]

Solution: Make test a lot harder and give 1 hour per section to everyone??? or unlimited time to everyone...LOL 180 becomes 94th percentile

Also...this will fuck people with low GPA because I'd imagine that schools will take that into account more

Wouldn't work; people who's struggle with time would still be at an unfair disadvantage. That's what sucks about using a time constraint as a testing method

[nothingtosee]

I'd be interested the last five years of breakdown by number getting each accomodation and comparing this over the next five years. But I can't imagine lsac could/would release this.

Well they did do that for 2002-2006.

Time-accommodated LSAT for ADHD had a nearly negligible 0.15 correlation with 1L grades, and 0.23 when taking LSAT/UGPA combined.
Time-accommodated LSAT for Learning Disorder had a 0.21 correlation with grades and 0.34 when combined with UGPA.

Non accommodated LSAT had a 0.33 correlation with grades and 0.46 when combined with UGPA.

Those are significant differences, especially for the ADHD accommodations.

And most important is the fact that time-accommodations overpredicted 1L grades significantly, with extra time due to ADHD and Learning Disorder overpredicting the most.

While accommodations that still used standard time showed reduced predictiveness compared to non-accommodated (0.25/0.38 correlations), it was not significantly biased in any particular direction. This means that while those tests didn't as accurately predict future grades, they still fairly represented the test-takers abilities when taken as a whole.

I'm not talking about correlation. I want to know how many prople had late print, jow man extended time, etc

[ratfukr]

I think add/adhd is a nonsense excuse for extra time for most people except the true extreme cases, which are only a small proportion of all people currently diagnosed as add. It's one of the more commonly over diagnosed conditions these days. From what I've seen with many students, add kids tend to do better and improve faster than others, whether medicated or not, due to their quick thinking minds and being used to jumping from thinking about one thing to another rapidly like you do in LR and LGs, but that's just anecdotal from my experience.

christ what an asshole
u write w the economy of some1 who just discovered adderall so maybe in a couple hours u will understand what a stim crash is
even the XR dip is a thing 2 deal w. u should start PTing rn & let me know what happens when u suddenly come off in the middle of a timed section

[Tanicius]

Will schools eventually be forced to offer extra time with no flagging too?

What's the reasoning for requiring this on entrance exams but not in the schools themselves?

Interested in this. If schools are not required to grant accommodations to everyone who gets extra time on the LSAT, I want to defer a year. Put me on a curve in LS with people who abuse this, I'd love it. OTOH, if schools also have to grant extra time to anyone who can get an ADD diagnosis, that kind of sucks.

Don't schools already offer accommodations? Since they're schools and required to? I've never heard of schools (as opposed to LSAC) flagging accommodated grades.

To be honest, I could see benefits to if the LSAT became less predictive and schools were forced to a more holistic style of admissions review. I know there are problems with that as well, though (just different ones).

Wait. You're telling me that some students get extra time on their law school exams? What. the fuck.

Um, yes, as they should. I had a classmate who had positively terrible dyslexia, to the extent that it would take her literally twice as long to read and write as everyone else in class because she had to read everything at least twice to understand what it was saying.

Guess how much that affects her ability to succeed in the real world.

It doesn't. The real world of legal practice isn't comprised of three-hour time windows for your assignments.

The problem isn't with the students with disabilities failing to accurately indicate their real-world or law school potential. The problem is with the failures of an outdated, not-actually-predictive testing model.

[Tanicius]

If they do get a surge in inflated LSATs (at least until the "curve" catches up) the schools are likely to suffer with lower bar passage rates, which will hurt their rankings. I hope.

Just lol @ ^.

[Dredd_2017]

Um, yes, as they should. I had a classmate who had positively terrible dyslexia, to the extent that it would take her literally twice as long to read and write as everyone else in class because she had to read everything at least twice to understand what it was saying.

Guess how much that affects her ability to succeed in the real world.

It doesn't. The real world of legal practice isn't comprised of three-hour time windows for your assignments.

"Doesn't affect the real world" is absurd, the majority of biglaw hate / what is your day like post discusses the ebb and flow of work such that sometimes you're slammed and have to push work out immediately while other times there is a lull and things are slow. During your classmates slammed periods she will work slower than everyone else due to her self-described terrible dyslexia, thus she will be less efficient and bill more hours for the same tasks. This is not even up for debate, it is simply a fact and exactly why she get extra time on law school exams. If I was the client paying $300 an hour for a first year associates work I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be pleased about some first year associate who completed work slow.

I reiterate that the main issue here is not predictive value but that without flagging these scores will factor into us news and thus law schools will treat them with equal weight. That means (Significantly) bigger scholarships and better opportunities for those who try to game the system using LSAC's new lowest-common-denominator approach to post-graduate test accommodations.

[Tanicius]

Um, yes, as they should. I had a classmate who had positively terrible dyslexia, to the extent that it would take her literally twice as long to read and write as everyone else in class because she had to read everything at least twice to understand what it was saying.

Guess how much that affects her ability to succeed in the real world.

It doesn't. The real world of legal practice isn't comprised of three-hour time windows for your assignments.

"Doesn't affect the real world" is absurd, the majority of biglaw hate / what is your day like post discusses the ebb and flow of work such that sometimes you're slammed and have to push work out immediately while other times there is a lull and things are slow. During your classmates slammed periods she will work slower than everyone else due to her self-described terrible dyslexia, thus she will be less efficient and bill more hours for the same tasks. This is not even up for debate, it is simply a fact and exactly why she get extra time on law school exams. If I was the client paying $300 an hour for a first year associates work I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be pleased about some first year associate who completed work slow.

1.) Biglaw survives on inefficiency. It's literally what keeps their lights on.

2. Yeah, you get slammed at every legal job on occasion. But the number of times you would ever have to write 30 pages of material in four hours in real life is a number you can count on less than one finger.

I reiterate that the main issue here is not predictive value but that without flagging these scores will factor into us news and thus law schools will treat them with equal weight. That means (Significantly) bigger scholarships and better opportunities for those who try to game the system using LSAC's new lowest-common-denominator approach to post-graduate test accommodations.

Your reiterated hypothesis is duly noted. So is the zero empirical evidence supporting it as anything more than a nominal concern.

[Onomatopoeia]

Um, yes, as they should. I had a classmate who had positively terrible dyslexia, to the extent that it would take her literally twice as long to read and write as everyone else in class because she had to read everything at least twice to understand what it was saying.

Guess how much that affects her ability to succeed in the real world.

It doesn't. The real world of legal practice isn't comprised of three-hour time windows for your assignments.

"Doesn't affect the real world" is absurd, the majority of biglaw hate / what is your day like post discusses the ebb and flow of work such that sometimes you're slammed and have to push work out immediately while other times there is a lull and things are slow. During your classmates slammed periods she will work slower than everyone else due to her self-described terrible dyslexia, thus she will be less efficient and bill more hours for the same tasks. This is not even up for debate, it is simply a fact and exactly why she get extra time on law school exams. If I was the client paying $300 an hour for a first year associates work I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be pleased about some first year associate who completed work slow.

1.) Biglaw survives on inefficiency. It's literally what keeps their lights on.

2. Yeah, you get slammed at every legal job on occasion. But the number of times you would ever have to write 30 pages of material in four hours in real life is a number you can count on less than one finger.

I reiterate that the main issue here is not predictive value but that without flagging these scores will factor into us news and thus law schools will treat them with equal weight. That means (Significantly) bigger scholarships and better opportunities for those who try to game the system using LSAC's new lowest-common-denominator approach to post-graduate test accommodations.

Your reiterated hypothesis is duly noted. So is the zero empirical evidence supporting it as anything more than a nominal concern.

It is more than a nominal concern. The empirical evidence from SAT gaming that is ongoing already exists, per the position of graeme. Logically, you gotta imagine that a slight uptick in 99%+ scores will have a huge effect. it does not take many people to look to getting accommodations to change the status quo

[Tanicius]

It is more than a nominal concern. The empirical evidence from SAT gaming that is ongoing already exists, per the position of graeme. Logically, you gotta imagine that a slight uptick in 99%+ scores will have a huge effect. it does not take many people to look to getting accommodations to change the status quo

1. The LSAT has already been game-able when it comes to bribing someone for a psyche disability diagnosis.

2. Graeme's evidence is anecdotal and limited to a different situation. It is an unfounded assumption at this point that the type of damage he observes with the SAT would be replicated with the LSAT just because the school no longer has to find out about and report the disability flag.

3. It is particularly unfounded to assume that the damage done by this change will outweigh the benefit to students with legitimate disabilities, of which the loudest critics in this thread clearly have no personal experience.

[cotiger]

Wait. You're telling me that some students get extra time on their law school exams? What. the fuck.

Um, yes, as they should. I had a classmate who had positively terrible dyslexia, to the extent that it would take her literally twice as long to read and write as everyone else in class because she had to read everything at least twice to understand what it was saying.

Guess how much that affects her ability to succeed in the real world.

It doesn't. The real world of legal practice isn't comprised of three-hour time windows for your assignments.

The problem isn't with the students with disabilities failing to accurately indicate their real-world or law school potential. The problem is with the failures of an outdated, not-actually-predictive testing model.

The LSAT is the most important factor to getting into law school. Your school and 1L grades are the most important factors to getting your first legal job. The fact that none of those is necessarily indicative of how good you'll be at lawyering is irrelevant. It's what employers care about.

I've never taken a law school exam, but DF and Rayiner's descriptions of a spelling/grammar holocaust that's graded on how many items of a checklist you can knock off before time runs out (and you'll never get them all) strikes me as even more time dependent than the LSAT. While we obviously don't have data on law school tests, what we do have from LSAC indicates that people with time extensions due to ADHD and learning disabilities are given an advantage on time crunched tests.

Perhaps law schools are better at assigning appropriate accommodations than LSAC is, but I doubt it.

Considering that law school exams are even more directly zero sum than the LSAT, yeah that's bullshit.

[Onomatopoeia]

It is more than a nominal concern. The empirical evidence from SAT gaming that is ongoing already exists, per the position of graeme. Logically, you gotta imagine that a slight uptick in 99%+ scores will have a huge effect. it does not take many people to look to getting accommodations to change the status quo

1. The LSAT has already been game-able when it comes to bribing someone for a psyche disability diagnosis.

2. Graeme's evidence is anecdotal and limited to a different situation. It is an unfounded assumption at this point that the type of damage he observes with the SAT would be replicated with the LSAT just because the school no longer has to find out about and report the disability flag.

3. It is particularly unfounded to assume that the damage done by this change will outweigh the benefit to students with legitimate disabilities, of which the loudest critics in this thread clearly have no personal experience.

ok so you're cool with not flagging scores for now. do you believe that these scores should be included when deciding what the curve should be?

it seems like sat accommodations being granted will be nearly sufficient to have lsat accommodations granted now so i don't see how you think the damage would not be replicated.

i believe we should accommodate more and we should continue to flag the scores. us news can decide whether to count the flagged scores and law schools can decide how to treat them for admissions.

[dwil770]

Didn't they settle because they violated federal law in the ADA? I mean, they have to comply with the law so I don't know why anyone would be upset.
I recall posts on here where people who had long standing disabilities were denied accommodations.

Maybe if they had been more reasonable, this would have been avoided.

You don't see why anyone would be upset? Because this waters down the lsat.

[cotiger]

3. It is particularly unfounded to assume that the damage done by this change will outweigh the benefit to students with legitimate disabilities, of which the loudest critics in this thread clearly have no personal experience.

The issue isn't whether people should be allowed to be accommodated on the LSAT. At least it isn't for me. The issue is whether time extended scores should be allowed to be unflagged and treated as identical to those with standard time.

If you think that time extended tests should be treated as equivalent, how do you reconcile that with the evidence from LSAC that time extension due to ADHD and learning disabilities gives those students an advantage?

[A. Nony Mouse]

Um, yes, as they should. I had a classmate who had positively terrible dyslexia, to the extent that it would take her literally twice as long to read and write as everyone else in class because she had to read everything at least twice to understand what it was saying.

Guess how much that affects her ability to succeed in the real world.

It doesn't. The real world of legal practice isn't comprised of three-hour time windows for your assignments.

"Doesn't affect the real world" is absurd, the majority of biglaw hate / what is your day like post discusses the ebb and flow of work such that sometimes you're slammed and have to push work out immediately while other times there is a lull and things are slow. During your classmates slammed periods she will work slower than everyone else due to her self-described terrible dyslexia, thus she will be less efficient and bill more hours for the same tasks. This is not even up for debate, it is simply a fact and exactly why she get extra time on law school exams. If I was the client paying $300 an hour for a first year associates work I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be pleased about some first year associate who completed work slow.

I reiterate that the main issue here is not predictive value but that without flagging these scores will factor into us news and thus law schools will treat them with equal weight. That means (Significantly) bigger scholarships and better opportunities for those who try to game the system using LSAC's new lowest-common-denominator approach to post-graduate test accommodations.

You realize people go to law school and get jobs besides biglaw, right?

[haus]

Um, yes, as they should. I had a classmate who had positively terrible dyslexia, to the extent that it would take her literally twice as long to read and write as everyone else in class because she had to read everything at least twice to understand what it was saying.

Guess how much that affects her ability to succeed in the real world.

It doesn't. The real world of legal practice isn't comprised of three-hour time windows for your assignments.

"Doesn't affect the real world" is absurd, the majority of biglaw hate / what is your day like post discusses the ebb and flow of work such that sometimes you're slammed and have to push work out immediately while other times there is a lull and things are slow. During your classmates slammed periods she will work slower than everyone else due to her self-described terrible dyslexia, thus she will be less efficient and bill more hours for the same tasks. This is not even up for debate, it is simply a fact and exactly why she get extra time on law school exams. If I was the client paying $300 an hour for a first year associates work I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be pleased about some first year associate who completed work slow.

I reiterate that the main issue here is not predictive value but that without flagging these scores will factor into us news and thus law schools will treat them with equal weight. That means (Significantly) bigger scholarships and better opportunities for those who try to game the system using LSAC's new lowest-common-denominator approach to post-graduate test accommodations.

You realize people go to law school and get jobs besides biglaw, right?

I suspect Dredd and others in this thread imagine all law jobs to be diagraming logic games while wearing formal business wear.

[Onomatopoeia]

I will admit that I'd be more awesome at life if it was a big logic game, but that's not what is influencing my position on this matter