The purpose of this paper is to (a) establish whether meaning recall and meaning recognition item formats test psychometrically distinct constructs of vocabulary knowledge which measure separate skills, and, if so, (b) determine whether each construct possesses unique properties predictive of L2 reading proficiency. Factor analyses and…

This study explored the interplay between content knowledge and reading ability in a large-scale multistage adaptive English for academic purposes (EAP) reading assessment at a range of ability levels across 1-12 graders. The datasets for this study were item-level responses to the reading tests of ACCESS for ELLs Online 2.0. A sample of 10,000…

Stakeholders of language tests are often interested in subscores. However, reporting a subscore is not always justified; a subscore should provide reliable and distinct information to be worth reporting. When a subscore is used for decisions across multiple levels (e.g., individual test takers and schools), it needs to be justified for its…

The present study examined the reliability of the reading, listening, speaking, and writing section scores for the TOEFL iBT® test and their interrelationship in order to collect empirical evidence to support, respectively, the "generalization" inference and the "explanation" inference in the TOEFL iBT validity argument…

This study assessed the factor structure of the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC®) Listening and Reading test, and its invariance across subgroups of test-takers. The subgroups were defined by (a) gender, (b) age, (c) employment status, (d) time spent studying English, and (e) having lived in a country where English is the…

In this study, two alternative theoretical models were compared, in order to analyze which of them best explains primary school children's text comprehension skills. The first one was based on the distinction between two types of answers requested by the comprehension test: local or global. The second model involved texts' input modality: written…

This study explores the constructs that underpin three different measures of vocabulary knowledge and investigates the degree to which these three measures correlate with, and are able to predict, measures of second language (L2) listening and reading. Word frequency structured vocabulary tests tapping "receptive/orthographic (RecOrth)…

On the basis of a validation study of a new test for assessing low-achieving adolescents' reading comprehension skills--the SALT-reading--we analyzed two issues relevant to the field of reading test development. Using the test results of 200 seventh graders, we examined the possibility of identifying reading comprehension subskills and the effects…

In this study, differential item functioning (DIF) trends were examined for English language learners (ELLs) versus non-ELL students in third and tenth grades on a large-scale reading assessment. To facilitate the analyses, a meta-analytic DIF technique was employed. The results revealed that items requiring knowledge of words and phrases in…

The present study examined pedagogic components of Chinese reading literacy in a representative sample of 1164 Grades 7, 9 and 11 Chinese students (mean age of 15 years) from 11 secondary schools in Hong Kong with each student tested for about 2.5 hours. Multiple group confirmatory factor analyses showed that across the three grade levels, the…