Purpose: Auditory-perceptual evaluation is essential for the assessment of voice quality. The Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) provides a standardized protocol and assessment form for clinicians to analyze the voice quality and has been adapted into several different languages. The aims of this study were to develop the…

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…

Addressing the lack of English tests that measure critical thinking (CT) abilities of EFL learners, this study aims to develop an English Critical Thinking Test (ECTT) designed to measure the consistency, analysis, and inference CT skills. It is a follow-up to a pilot study to accumulate validity evidence for the use of the ECTT. A total of 262…

In Japan, school teachers experience mental health issues, leading to absences or leave from their duties. While extended working hours significantly contribute to this problem, diminished self-esteem has emerged as the primary causal factor. Reduced self-esteem is frequently correlated with diminished self-efficacy across multiple facets of…

Home-school partnership is key to students' success at schools. Japanese schools have attempted to invite families to participate in school educational activities. However, these efforts are embedded into Japanese school cultures and were not studied empirically. This study aimed to explore teachers' attitudes and actions toward home-school…

It is important to identify suitable parameters to measure and assess the quality of physical education. This paper aims to understand such measuring tool by focusing on professional perceptions and areas of concern of quality physical education (QPE). The research survey includes data gathered from 799 professionals in 11 cities in Asia. These…

The substantive component of construct validity requires a confrontation between empirical test results and content relevance. The Vocabulary Size Test (VST) has been extensively validated in terms of empirical results. Less is known, however, about expert judgments of content relevance. The VST was constructed and validated according to the…

In this study, I sought to investigate whether visuospatial working memory (VWM) explains individual differences in reading fluency growth. One hundred and thirty Japanese junior and senior high school students were administered the Mr. Peanut and reversed Corsi tasks, respectively as measures of VWM, followed by three waves of reading fluency…

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…

One of the challenges of developing assessments for young language learners is the shortage of evidence-based information about such assessments for languages other than English. In light of this situation, this paper discusses the development of an assessment for young languages learners in the context of Japanese as a second language (JSL). In…

To examine reliability, validity, factor structure, and measurement invariance (i.e., configural, metric, and scalar invariance) of the Japanese Conners' Adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) Rating Scales (CAARS), Japanese nonclinical adults (N = 786) completed the CAARS Self-Report (CAARS-S). Each participant was also rated by…

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…

Background: Research on the test-taker perception of assessments has been conducted under the assumption that negative test-taker perception may influence test performance by decreasing test-taking motivation. This assumption, however, has not been verified in the field of language testing. Building on expectancy-value theory, this study explored…

In this study, we define the term "screener test," elaborate key considerations in test design, and describe how to incorporate the concepts of practicality and argument-based validation to drive an evaluation of screener tests for language assessment. A screener test is defined as a brief assessment designed to identify an examinee as a…

Scientific literacy has been measured by a variety of assessment tools in the past few decades. International surveys such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) emphasize the importance of scientific literacy. Scientific literacy is now regarded as a…