This paper describes the development and evaluation of Interaction Competence Elicitor (ICE), a spoken dialog system (SDS) for the delivery of a paired oral discussion task in the context of language assessment. The purpose of ICE is to sustain a topic-specific conversation with a test taker in order to elicit discourse that can be later judged to…

Various examinations are administered at universities across the US as a means of assessing bilingual/multilingual international teaching assistants' (ITAs') proficiency in spoken English before they are permitted to teach. While such exams are taken by students in a range of academic disciplines, recent research suggests that communicative…

The use of integrated tasks to test English-speaking skills raises questions about the impact of comprehension on test score outcomes, and the impact of stimulus materials on test-taker strategic behaviours. This study analysed speaking performances and verbal report data to examine the strategies used by test takers at different levels of…

This study employed narrative inquiry to understand the oral English learning motivation of Chinese international students with low oral English proficiency through their academic acculturation stories. Expectancy-value theory served as the theoretical framework to inform the study design and the interpretation of results. Findings suggest all…

We investigated how young language learners process their responses on and perceive a computer-mediated, timed speaking test. Twenty 8-, 9-, and 10-year-old non-native English-speaking children (NNSs) and eight same-aged, native English-speaking children (NSs) completed seven computerized sample TOEFL® Primary™ speaking test tasks. We investigated…

This study investigates the relationship between performances on the speaking component of the TOEFL iBTTM with performances on academic oral assessment tasks. For the academic tasks, we recorded and transcribed the performances of five local and five high-achieving international undergraduate students on oral assessment tasks in core first-year…

The field of L2 pragmatics demonstrates the effect of instructional intervention on the development of L2 learners' pragmatic competence. Nevertheless, effective instruction requires knowledge of pragmatic performances of L2 learners in naturally occurring conversations, in comparison to those of the target community speakers. This study, using a…

This study examines the predictive validity of the TOEFL iBT with respect to academic achievement as measured by the first-year grade point average (GPA) of Chinese students at Purdue University, a large, public, Research I institution in Indiana, USA. Correlations between GPA, TOEFL iBT total and subsection scores were examined on 1990 mainland…

The current study examined the effects of text-based relational (i.e., cohesion), propositional-specific (i.e., lexical), and syntactic features in a source text on subsequent integration of the source text in spoken responses. It further investigated the effects of word integration on human ratings of speaking performance while taking into…

Using an ex-post facto, non-experimental approach, this research examined the impact of English language proficiency and multilingualism on the academic performance of international students enrolled in a four-year university located in north central Louisiana in the United States. Data were collected through a self-reported questionnaire from 59…

In this study we compare test takers' performance on the Speaking section of the TOEFL iBT™and their performances during their real-life academic studies. Thirty international graduate students from mixed language backgrounds in two different disciplines (Sciences and Social Sciences) responded to two independent and four integrated speaking tasks…

This study examined the construct validity of the TOEFL iBT Speaking subsection for the purposes of international teaching assistant (ITA) certification, a purpose for which it was not specifically designed. The factor structure of the new TOEFL was compared with that of another language performance test in use at a major American research…

Integrated writing tasks that involve different language modalities such as reading and listening have increasingly been used as means to assess academic writing. Thus, there is a need for understanding how test-takers coordinate different skills to complete these tasks. This study explored second language writers' strategy use and its…

This study investigates the value of reporting the reading, listening, speaking, and writing section scores for the "TOEFL iBT"® test, focusing on 4 related aspects of the psychometric quality of the TOEFL iBT section scores: reliability of the section scores, dimensionality of the test, presence of distinct score profiles, and the…

This dissertation follows an oral language assessment tool from initial design and implementation to validity analysis. The specialized variables of this study are the population: international teaching assistants and the purpose: spoken assessment as a hiring prerequisite. However, the process can easily be applied to other populations and…