Thanks to the increased accessibility of multimedia technology, video texts have been widely used in teaching English in Chinese foreign language classrooms. This trend provides great impetus for changes in the means of assessing listening in both achievement and proficiency tests, and suggests the potential possibility of supplanting the…

Pragmatic competence is among the explicitly acknowledged sub-competences that make the communicative competence in any language (Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Council of Europe, 2001). Within the notion of pragmatic competence itself, "implicature (implied meanings)" comes to the fore as one of the five main areas there (Levinson, 1983).…

There are two primary challenges for instructors in offering a high-quality course at large scale. The first is scaling educational experiences to such a large audience. The second major challenge encountered is that of enabling adaptivity of the educational experience. This thesis addresses both major challenges in the way of high-quality…

This study investigated the impact of electronic-based dynamic assessment on the listening skill of Iranian EFL learners to achieve this goal, a group of 40 female EFL upper-intermediate students (aged between 26 to 38 years old) from to language institutes were selected as the participants of the study after administering a Quick Placement Test…

This study investigated the application of "WriteToLearn" on Chinese undergraduate English majors' essays in terms of its scoring ability and the accuracy of its error feedback. Participants were 163 second-year English majors from a university located in Sichuan province who wrote 326 essays from two writing prompts. Each paper was…

Online tests have been identified as a core learning activity in higher education. Unlike conventional online tests, which cannot completely reflect students' learning status, two-tier tests not only consider students' answers, but also take into account reasons for their answers. Due to such significance, research into the two-tier tests had…

Technical and vocational education emphasizes the development and training of hand motor skills. However, some problems exist in the current career and aptitude tests in that they do not truly measure the hand motor skills. This study used the Nintendo Wii Remote Controller as the testing device in developing a set of computerized testing tools to…

Children are active learners: they learn not only from the information people offer and the evidence they happen to observe, but by actively seeking information. However, children's information search strategies are typically less efficient than those of adults. In two studies, we isolate potential sources of developmental change in how children…

Education policy in the United States centers K-12 assessment efforts primarily on standardized tests. However, such tests may not provide an accurate and reliable representation of what students understand about the complexity of science. Research indicates that students tend to pass science tests, even if they do not understand the concepts…

This work demonstrates the use of a 2.0 tool, namely, Socrative, to evaluate one of the cross-curricular competences indicated by the Universitat Politècnica de València, specifically, comprehension and integration. It has been applied to the courses in different areas: sciences, engineering and languages. As part of its implementation, activities…

Automated computerized scoring systems (ACSSs) are being increasingly used to analyze text in many educational settings. Nevertheless, the impact of misspelled words (MSW) on scoring accuracy remains to be investigated in many domains, particularly jargon-rich disciplines such as the life sciences. Empirical studies confirm that MSW are a…

This article details a new, free resource for continuous video assessment named YouDemo. The tool enables real time rating of uploaded YouTube videos for use in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and beyond. The authors discuss trends of preservice science teachers' assessments of self- and peer-created videos using…

The acquisition of teacher digital competence is a key aspect in the initial training of teachers. However, most existing evaluation instruments do not provide sufficient evidence of this teaching competence. In this study, we describe the design and development process of a three-dimensional (3D) virtual environment for evaluating the teacher…

Distance learning programs across the country continue to grow and evolve. In order to support these programs, librarians are often expected to convert face-to-face classes and reference sessions to the online environment. Due to the necessity of explaining information literacy concepts and demonstrating the access and use of library resources,…

This research focuses on the design of resources for both reappraising the knowledge of a native language for those who speak or have notions of Nahuatl, and getting familiar with terms for those who do not speak this language. An audio-lexicon Spanish-Nahuatl, ALEN, was developed taking advantage of new technologies, especially mobile devices and…