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The development of many large scale minimum competency testing programs throughout the country has caused concern for the special testing needs of handicapped students. Participation of handicapped students in statewide minimum competency testing programs was the basic issue under investigation in this study. Using equal samples (n = 300 each) of handicapped (emotionally handicapped, specific learning disabled, and educable mentally handicapped) and nonhandicapped students, the investigator made comparisons among handicapping conditions and between handicapped students and their nonhandicapped peers on specific skills and standards included on Florida's Statewide Student Assessment Test, Part II (SSAT-II).
The investigator analyzed the data included in this study by reporting both the percentages of mastery and raw scores achieved by equal random samples of four groups of students on skills and standards included on the SSAT-II. A second comparison was made among the four samples using the chi-square test of association. This nonparametric analysis strategy was employed to determine the association between categories of samples and responses (passed, failed, not tested). Due to the size of the four samples (n = 300 each group) and the large variation among the performances of certain samples, a difference of more than 10 percentage points on skills achieved was determined by the investigator to indicate significance without further statistical analysis. With this criterion, a second chi-square procedure was necessary only in comparing the samples of emotionally handicapped (EH) and specific learning disabled (SLD) students' skill achievement.
The chi-square analysis resulted in significant association between categories and responses. It was determined that nonhandicapped students fared better than those handicapped students on all measures with results for SLD and EH students more closely approaching those of the nonhandicapped sample. Weak performances and significantly lower rates of achievement prompted concerns about the inclusion of educable mentally handicapped (EMH) students in minimum competency testing programs.