In Saudi Arabia, mathematics is an essential subject for all freshmen except students majoring in medical sciences. The struggle of students in mathematics is one of the most common issues in the last ten years (Khoshaim, 2015). According to Higbee and Thomas (1999), mathematics self-efficacy, along with other effective characteristics such as…

In this digital age, digital multimodal composing (DMC) has permeated the L2 classroom as a technology-enhanced L2 writing task. Despite the learning potential of DMC for L2 students, instruments that measure L2 students' DMC competence are rare. As such, the present study sought to develop and validate an L2 student DMC competence scale in the…

This article outlines the development and validation of the "Mathematics Education of English Learners Scale" (MEELS) to understand mathematics preservice teachers' beliefs about teaching mathematics to English learners (ELs). Nine hundred and twenty-five PSTs from 17 states across the U.S. were divided randomly into two samples for the…

Studies have shown that raising L2 learners' metaphor awareness contributes to the acquisition of figurative language, which fosters students' development of language skills. However, the instruments measuring metaphor awareness, in the majority of relevant research, did not seem to have undergone proper methodological procedures for checking…

The Assessment of Language in Adults using Self-reported Skills (ALASS) is an online tool aimed at providing a rapid indication of language-related skills at two levels: basic performance and social use. In Study 1, we have developed and validated a new tool with two objective measures: a lexical decision test and a grammaticality judgement test,…

Sight translation has been widely used in aptitude testing to screen prospective trainee interpreters at leading interpreter training schools, including ESIT, ISIT, and EMCI. However, it has also been criticised for its lack of validity and reliability. No empirical study has thus far been conducted to explore its power to predict interpreting…

Developing effective aptitude test batteries for conference interpreting is highly relevant for China given its large and fast-growing interpreting trainee population. This paper reports on the aptitude tests implemented to 23 first-year students at a CIUTI member and UN MOU university in China. We compared the validity of recall, a test commonly…

The present study investigated the speaking module of TOEFL iBT with an emphasis on the dichotomy of independent and integrated tasks. The potential differences between the two speaking conditions were intended to be explored based on the oral performance elicited from a group of Iranian test takers. To collect the required data, a simulated…

In the realm of language proficiency assessments, the domain description inference and the extrapolation inference are key components of a validity argument. Biber et al.'s description of the lexicogrammatical features of the spoken and written registers in the T2K-SWAL corpus has served as support for the TOEFL iBT test's domain description and…

This study aimed to develop and psychometrically evaluate a self-report instrument to assess attitudes and self-efficacy of Physical Education (PE) preservice teachers toward teaching linguistically and culturally diverse PE classes. An 18-item instrument was developed for the initial tests. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory…

This exploratory study examines the role of foreign and second language contexts in the acquisition of conventional expressions. A group of 21 ESL learners was compared to 25 EFL learners randomly selected from a larger pool. Both groups completed an aural multiple-choice discourse completion task (MC-DCT), which was developed from a previously…

A key piece of a validity argument for a language assessment tool is clear overlap between assessment tasks and the target language use (TLU) domain (i.e., the domain description inference). The TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Academic Language (T2K-SWAL) corpus, which represents a variety of academic registers and disciplines in traditional…

In this paper, we first examine the challenges of score comparability associated with the use of assessments that are exported. By exported assessments, we mean assessments that are developed for domestic use and are then administered in other countries in either the same or a different language. Second, we provide suggestions to better support…

As the most prestigious and popular standardized achievement test to certify examinees' proficiency of the English language at the national level, Foreign Language Examination (YDS) has been mostly taken by academic staff, undergraduate and graduate students, state employees, and military personnel for years in Turkey. The current study set out to…

Automated essay scoring (AES) generally computes essay scores as a function of macrofeatures derived from a set of microfeatures extracted from the text using natural language processing (NLP). In the "e-rater"® automated scoring engine, developed at "Educational Testing Service" (ETS) for the automated scoring of essays, each…