In response to the calls for making key stakeholders' perspectives relevant in the test validation process, the study discussed in this report sought test-taker feedback as part of collecting validity evidence and supporting the ongoing field testing efforts of the new "TOEFL ITP"® Speaking section. Specifically, I aimed to investigate…

This study examines the role of receptive vocabulary knowledge on outcomes of the TOEFL reading comprehension task. Participants included 18 native speakers of Spanish learning English as a foreign language and 17 native speakers of English ranging in age from 19-25 years. Lexical stimuli were presented auditorily and were divided into…

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) have received much interest within the field of language testing over the last decade due to their great potential to provide diagnostic feedback to all stakeholders and ultimately improve language teaching and learning. A large number of studies have demonstrated the application of CDMs on advanced large-scale…

An in-depth investigation of analytic relations by lexical researchers plays a prominent role in language learning and teaching. The primary objective of the present study was to investigate the extent to which prediction regarding different aspects of analytic relations impacts reading comprehension. The current research employed a quantitative…

Students of social and natural sciences are expected to achieve different learning outcomes because they employ different language learning strategies and are exposed to different vocabulary. This research was aimed at finding evidence from empirical data to determine whether the differences in learning outcomes are statistically significant. The…

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 project examined academic reading in two contrasting English as a medium of instruction (EMI) university settings in Nepal and Sweden and the unique challenges facing students who are studying in a language other than their primary language. The motivation for the project was to explore the role of high-stakes testing in EMI contexts and the…

In this study, 249 users of the "TOEFL ITP"® assessment series (e.g., admissions officers, English-language teachers, academic staff) in Japan, Mexico, and Indonesia were surveyed about their uses and opinions of TOEFL ITP scores, followed by in-depth interviews with 21 of these users. Overall, the most common use of the test was as an…

This study uses a moving windows self-paced reading task to assess text comprehension of beginning and intermediate-level simplified texts and authentic texts by L2 learners engaged in a text-retelling task. Linear mixed effects (LME) models revealed statistically significant main effects for reading proficiency and text level on the number of…

The present study focused on the analysis of listening sections of two international English proficiency tests, i.e. IELTS and TOEFL tests, and one local English proficiency test, i.e. TOLIMO from pragmatic perspective. An attempt was made to explore the areas of pragmatic knowledge presented, and to assess test takers' pragmatic knowledge. For…

The present study aims at finding the differences between bilingual and monolingual learners across gender in the use of cognitive, metacognitive, and total reading strategies, as well as reading comprehension ability. To this end, 50 Persian-Turkish bilinguals and 36 Persian monolinguals participated in the study. A standard test of reading…

This factorial quasi-experimental 2 x 2 study aimed to corroborate the effect of PRWR strategy, compared to Translation and Reading Aloud, on students' academic content-area reading comprehension as observed from their English proficiency. This study also examined the interaction between the strategy and English proficiency. Data were obtained…

The purpose of this study was to collect recommendations for minimum score requirements (cut scores) on the "TOEFL Junior"® English language proficiency test in order to guide decisions on the placement of learners into English as a second language (ESL) support classes. The TOEFL Junior test, intended primarily for students ages 11 and…

Top-down models of reading emphasize methods and techniques that promote active reading which involves utilizing contextual clues to guess vocabulary meaning. This study aims at analyzing the correlation between EFL students' general reading proficiency and guessing patterns, and identifying the types of contextual clues actually used by EFL…

Self-regulated learning strategies have recently received a remarkable attention by researchers. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between self-regulated learning strategies and students' language proficiency as well as their reading comprehension. To do so, 115 Iranian EFL university students were selected. First, a TOEFL test…