This article describes the National Center Test for University Admissions, a unified national test in Japan, which is taken by 500,000 students every year. It states that implementation of the Center Test began in 1990, with the English component consisting only of the written section until 2005, when the listening section was first implemented…

This article investigates how measurement models and statistical procedures can be applied to estimate the accuracy of proficiency classification in language testing. The paper starts with a concise introduction of four measurement models: the classical test theory (CTT) model, the dichotomous item response theory (IRT) model, the testlet response…

This study explores how second language (L2) texts written by learners at various proficiency levels can be classified using computational indices that characterize lexical competence. For this study, 100 writing samples taken from 100 L2 learners were analyzed using lexical indices reported by the computational tool Coh-Metrix. The L2 writing…

The purpose of the Test for English Majors (TEM) is to measure the English proficiency of Chinese university undergraduates majoring in English Language and Literature and to examine whether these students meet the required levels of English language abilities as specified in the National College English Teaching Syllabus for English Majors…

This paper reports the findings of an empirical study on ESL/EFL teachers' evaluation and interpretation of oral English proficiency as elicited by the national College English Test-Spoken English Test (CET-SET) of China. Informed by debates on the issue of native speaker (NS) norms which have become the focus of attention in recent years, this…

This paper assesses the performance of a vocabulary test designed to measure second language productive vocabulary knowledge.The test, Lex30, uses a word association task to elicit vocabulary, and uses word frequency data to measure the vocabulary produced. Here we report firstly on the reliability of the test as measured by a test-retest study, a…

The Lancaster Language Testing Research Group was commissioned in 2006 by the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol) to conduct a validation study of the development of a test called ELPAC (English Language Proficiency for Aeronautical Communication), intended to assess the language proficiency of air traffic…

This study describes the development and validation of the Extract the Base test (ETB), which assesses derivational morphological awareness. Scores on this test were validated for 580 monolingual students and 373 Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) in third through fifth grade. As part of the validation of the internal structure,…

This paper provides a summary of a novel and integrated way to think about the item response models (most often used in measurement applications in social science areas such as psychology, education, and especially testing of various kinds) from the viewpoint of the statistical theory of generalized linear and nonlinear mixed models. In addition,…

This study identifies a unique context for exploring lay understandings of language testing and, by extension, for characterizing the nature of language assessment literacy among non-practitioners, stemming from data in an inquiry into the registration processes and support for overseas trained doctors by the Australian House of Representatives…

One of the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act is that states show adequate yearly progress in their English language learners' (ELLs) acquisition of English language proficiency. States are required to assess ELLs' English language proficiency annually in four language domains (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) to measure their…

This study examined two types of classroom assessment events, the more closed convergent assessments (CA) versus the more open-ended divergent assessments (DA), to see if they influence learners differently in terms of motivation and learning strategies. Participants were 105 college freshmen in Taiwan with the same instructor placed under one…

The content that test-takers attempt to convey is not always included in the construct definition of "general" English oral proficiency tests, although some English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) speaking tests and most writing tests tend to place great emphasis on the evaluation of the content or ideas in the performance. This study…

Just like buildings, tests are designed and built for specific purposes, people, and uses. However, both buildings and tests grow and change over time as the needs of their users change. Sometimes, they are also both used for purposes other than those intended in the original designs. This paper explores architecture as a metaphor for language…

The authors present a model of lexical proficiency based on lexical indices related to vocabulary size, depth of lexical knowledge, and accessibility to core lexical items. The lexical indices used in this study come from the computational tool Coh-Metrix and include word length scores, lexical diversity values, word frequency counts, hypernymy…