Oral language skills are important to consider in school psychology practice, as they are directly tied to many areas of academic functioning. For example, research has demonstrated that oral language skills in early elementary school predict reading comprehension in later grades (Kendeou, van den Broek, White, & Lynch, 2009). With a…

Human raters are normally involved in L2 performance assessment; as a result, rater behavior has been widely investigated to reduce rater effects on test scores and to provide validity arguments. Yet raters' cognition and use of rubrics in their actual rating have rarely been explored qualitatively in L2 speaking assessments. In this study three…

The study investigated the alternate forms reliability of four type-token ratios (TTRs) of oral language samples obtained from 52 elementary school children. Findings indicated that TTRs were not comparable when calculated for different sample sizes and that they were not reliable measures of the language performance of this population. (Author/DB)

This book is a guide to categorizing, measuring, testing, and assessing aspects of language, and is intended for language teachers, speech therapists and other language-related practitioners, and researchers, in conjunction with other resources on research methods and statistics. The first part is a discussion of basic terminology and the varied…

The psychological and linguistic foundations of the cloze procedure are outlined, and standard approaches and terms used are reviewed. Notes are given on cloze in testing, in relation to language structure, and as a teaching device, focusing on the manipulation of the technique for a variety of purposes and situations. (MSE)

The paper reviews the ways in which the cloze testing procedure measures the reading comprehension skills of students in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. The construction and scoring of the test and the interpretation of the scores are discussed and the reliability and validity of the cloze procedure for testing reading skills…

Underlying concepts and current issues in communicative testing are described, and several promising approaches to developing communicative tests are outlined. It is suggested that appropriate testing is likely to have dramatic effects on the format and content of foreign language curricula and on student motivation because of increased relevance.…

In order to obtain concrete information to improve test writing, this study analyzes 13 achievement test drafts written by graduate teaching assistants, lecturers, and adjunct faculty teaching introductory and intermediate college Spanish. The analysis focuses on factors of test method and content likely to create variance in test performance…

The development and validation of oral native language tests for Dutch adolescents was conducted for both assessment and curriculum development purposes at the secondary level. The oral language situations tested were the monologue, dialogue, and polylogue or group conversation on a topic. An American inventory of common speech subjects was used…

The International English Language Testing System is described, including the test's underlying principles, design, administration, scoring, reliability, and interpretation. Some criticisms of the program are briefly discussed. (MSE)

This report describes the development, construction, and validation of the Preliminary Chinese Proficiency Test (Pre-CPT), a standardized, nationally-normed test of listening and reading comprehension for beginning-level native English-speaking learners of Chinese as a second language. The Pre-CPT was designed as a lower-level version of the…

This monograph contains one-page profiles for 49 language usage tests for the assessment of writing. These tests are indirect measures and evaluate students ability to recognize standard English usage. The profiles are arranged alphabetically by test name. The profiles contain the following elements: (1) name of the test, (2) date of publication;…

A study found that trained standardized patients could provide a reliable assessment of English proficiency of foreign medical graduates by comparison with a standardized language test, but further research is needed to determine whether it is necessary to provide a clinical context for language assessment. (MSE)

This article uses a question-and-answer format to describe the major categories of technical information usually presented in technical manuals for tests used by speech/language clinicians, including logical evidence of validity, empirical evidence of validity, types of reliability estimates, and practical issues in applying standardization data…

A study examined difficulties encountered in producing multiple versions of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) exams administered during a 3-week period to students in the United Arab Emirates University Distance Learning Program for English. The challenges faced in production of the exams included: how to equalize and maintain test item and text…