Self-efficacy has emerged as a popular construct in second language research, especially in the frontline and practitioner-researcher spaces. A troubling trend in the relevant literature is that self-efficacy is often measured in a general or global manner. Such research ignores the fact that self-efficacy is a smaller context-driven construct…

Although an accurate measure of vocabulary size is integral to understanding the proficiency of language learners, the validity of multiple-choice (M/C) vocabulary tests to determine this has been questioned due to users guessing correct answers which inflates scores. In this paper the nature of guessing and partial knowledge used when taking the…

'Grit' has been identified as an important predictor of success in a number of academic and non-academic domains (Duckworth, A. L., C. Peterson, M. D. Matthews, and D. R. Kelly. 2007. "Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals." "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology" 92: 1087-1101.…

The elicited imitation task (EIT), in which language learners listen to a series of spoken sentences and repeat each one verbatim, is a commonly used measure of language proficiency in second language acquisition research. The "TOEFL® Essentials"™ test includes an EIT as a holistic measure of speaking proficiency, referred to as the…

Placement testing is a crucial issue in Japanese universities. In the majority of language programs, classes are streamed by proficiency levels based on students' placement test score for efficient instruction because university students' proficiency levels vary greatly even in the same program. The Visualizing English Language Competency Test®…

It is common practice for K-12 schools to assess multilingual students' language proficiency to determine language support program placement. Because such programs can provide essential scaffolding, the policies guiding these assessments merit careful consideration. It is well accepted that quality assessments must be valid (representative of the…

Background: The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) developed by Council of Europe has been gaining popularity since its publication in 2001, and reshaping the practice in language teaching, learning and assessment not only across the European continent but also in many other places such as Japan (CEFR-J project). Some pioneering work…

This study assessed the factor structure of the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC®) Listening and Reading test, and its invariance across subgroups of test-takers. The subgroups were defined by (a) gender, (b) age, (c) employment status, (d) time spent studying English, and (e) having lived in a country where English is the…

Background: While numerous articles on Criterion® have been published and its validity evidence has accumulated, test users need to obtain relevant validity evidence for their local context and develop their own validity argument. This paper aims to provide validity evidence for the interpretation and use of Criterion® for assessing second…

Background: This study examined the factor structure of the Test of English for Academic Purposes (TEAP®) test--a recently developed academic English test measuring four skills among Japanese university applicants--and compared the structure to that of the Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-based test (TOEFL iBT®), to investigate the…

Cloze tests have been the subject of numerous studies regarding their function and use in both first language and second language contexts (e.g., Jonz & Oller, 1994; Watanabe & Koyama, 2008). From a validity standpoint, one area of investigation has been the extent to which cloze tests measure reading ability beyond the sentence level.…

The constructs of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) have been used extensively to investigate learner performance on second language tasks. However, a serious concern is that the variables used to measure these constructs are sometimes used conventionally without any empirical justification. It is crucial for researchers to understand how…

This paper examines the different social categories that are made relevant when geographically dispersed speakers of English as an additional language communicate in chat rooms. Although the literature characterizes these interactions as English as a lingua franca, this paper explores to what extent interactants see themselves as lingua franca…

The primary purpose of this study was to provide preliminary validity evidence for a 140-item form of the Vocabulary Size Test, which is designed to measure written receptive knowledge of the first 14,000 words of English. Nineteen native speakers of English and 178 native speakers of Japanese participated in the study. Analyses based on the Rasch…

To facilitate the interpretation of test scores from the new TOEIC[R] (Test of English for International Communications[TM]) speaking and writing tests as measures of English-language proficiency, we administered a self-assessment inventory to TOEIC examinees in Japan and Korea, to gather their perceptions of their ability to perform a variety of…