In response to COVID-19, universities worldwide experienced drastic and sudden changes including the need to shift to online teaching and assessment. Following previous research suggesting that individual differences in typing skills could influence text quantity and quality, we investigated whether university students' typing speed is related to…

In this quasi-experimental study, the effects of lexical coverage through pseudo word manipulation in dialogue comprehension are investigated. Forty-four first-year students in a Japanese university listened to five dialogues at different lexical coverage levels: 98%, 95%, 90%, 85%, and 83%. The results of the comprehension tests confirm the…

This commentary provides an external perspective on NASP's first public report on racial and ethnic differences in Praxis outcomes. These data demonstrate racial disparities in pass rates but do not provide information regarding the causes of these disparities. This report underscores the need for expanded public reporting of Praxis data in order…

Seeking evidence to support content validity is essential to test validation. This is especially the case in contexts where test scores are interpreted in relation to external proficiency standards and where new test content is constantly being produced to meet test administration and security demands. In this paper, we describe a modified…

Distractors in tests are included to divert attention away from correct answers choices. Knowing what types of distractors commonly appear in tests will benefit test takers as they can prepare themselves beforehand. Therefore, this qualitative study was aimed at making assumptions on plausible lexical distractors which are expected to appear in…

Combining Bachman's (1990) conceptualization of content validity with Messick's (1989) unifying model of construct validity, this study attempted to fill the gap in researching content validation in the context of a university reading achievement test by (a) examining traditional content validity evidence and (b) analyzing the test scores to…

The research note focuses on the alignment aspect of English language proficiency (ELP) assessments, one of the required types of validity evidence for the federal peer review process of states' assessment systems. A basic tenant of current U.S. education policy is the alignment between what a test assesses and what content has been determined as…

The purpose of this study is to examine the appropriateness of using the "TOEFL Primary®" tests to evaluate the language abilities of students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) through an online-delivered curriculum, the VIPKid Major Course (MC). Data include student test scores on the TOEFL Primary Listening and Reading tests…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a cheating prevention strategy employed for a professional credentialing exam that involved releasing over 7,000 active and retired exam items. This study evaluated: 1) If any significant differences existed between examinee performance on released versus non-released items; 2) If item…

The Angoff standard setting method relies on content experts to review exam items and make judgments about the performance of the minimally proficient examinee. Unfortunately, at times content experts may have gaps in their understanding of specific exam content. These gaps are particularly likely to occur when the content domain is broad and/or…

This study examined the validity of trilingual test as a test accommodation to assess the Indigenous pupils' mathematical performance in Malaysia. The study employed two tests; BM-only test with items written in Malay language (BM) and trilingual test, which had items written in BM and English, and oral audio recording in their native Temiar…

To measure the response style of acquiescence, researchers recommend the use of at least 15 items with heterogeneous content. Such an approach is consistent with its theoretical definition and is a substantial improvement over traditional methods. Nevertheless, measurement of acquiescence can be enhanced by two additional considerations: first, to…

Research on the test structure of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has largely ignored gender, and research on FCI gender effects (often reported as "gender gaps") has seldom interrogated the structure of the test. These rarely crossed streams of research leave open the possibility that the FCI may not be structurally valid across…

The current study reports the results of a project aimed at assessing L2 listening comprehension by drawing on two approaches to dynamic assessment: interventionist and interactionist. The former approach was actualized by providing two graduated hints which were fixed and standardized for all test takers while the latter was actualized by asking…

Evidence of comparability is generally needed whenever there are variations in the conditions of an assessment administration, including variations introduced by the administration of an assessment on multiple digital devices (e.g., tablet, laptop, desktop). This article is meant to provide a comprehensive examination of issues relevant to the…