The process of flagging - Term Paper Example

Flagging is a provision that is essentially allowed at the request of the student; as such the student must request for such a provision in writing to the examinations body . This request often has the reason for which they are requesting special consideration with the nature of special consideration that they are requesting from the examining body. This request must be accompanied by a physical disability evaluation report that is completed and duly signed by a qualified evaluator . It is common that special consideration be provided for those with various disabilities and the nature of consideration often includes extra time for the completion of their examination.

The Law School Admissions Council will then notify the expected recipients of the student's scores of the nature of special consideration that the student has requested for and whether it has been granted or not. However, test scores of undergraduate prospective students are no longer flagged for the SAT and Advanced placement programs among others .This information is often sent as a confidential report to the test score recipient meant to ensure privacy. The information in such reports not only details that extra time was provided for the student to complete the test but also includes warnings that the results obtained by the student should be treated with great sensitivity and flexibility .

These reports also go further to disclose the nature of disability of the student thus providing confidential information about the student.. Such special considerations are presented in light of extra time that is provided to these students with disabilities that allow them to finish the test exam. The process of allocating a student extra time is often not considered a standardized testing condition necessitating the need for test administrators to inform the test recipients of the testing conditions.

This is because scores that are obtained as a result of non-standardized testing conditions cannot be compared to the scores that are obtained by other students under standardized testing conditions4. It has been the subject of extensive research methodologies that have revealed that results obtained on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) from nonstandard testing conditions cannot be compared to those obtained from standardized testing conditions. The extra testing time has been realized to provide scores that tend to over-predict how the examined students will perform in their first year of law school5.

They obtain results that are too high for the examined course when they are likely to achieve dismal performance in their first year of law school because they may be unable or unwilling to use such non standardized testing conditions6. This is especially the case of students with cognitive disabilities who out of fear of stigmatization by fellow mates will opt not to request for accommodation7. But students with physical disability will have no option but to request accommodation as is the case with amputees who may require assistance with filling out their answers.

This concept has often been the center of research that has sought to establish why students do not perform as well when they enter their first year of law school. It is because of such reasons that the Law School Admissions Council