Following employers' criticisms and recent societal developments, policymakers and educators have called for students to develop a range of generic skills such as critical thinking ("twenty-first century skills"). So far, such skills have typically been assessed by student self-reports or with multiple-choice tests. An alternative…

The processes to assess students' learning acquired in various non-formal and informal learning environments have become increasingly common in Finnish university language centres in recent years. This paper describes new developments at the University of Eastern Finland to assess students' non-formal and informal learning of English for Academic…

In this article, the author describes the use of an electronic quiz on a trial basis as a means of improving students' awareness of academic misconduct issues and their understanding of how to avoid those issues. The quiz integrated several new factors into information-sharing processes, increasing feedback to both students and staff. It was by no…

The Test of English as a Foreign Language[TM], better known as TOEFL[R], is designed to measure the English-language proficiency of people whose native language is not English. TOEFL scores are accepted by more than 6,000 colleges, universities, and licensing agencies in 130 countries. The test is also used by governments, and scholarship and…

The current paper uses information obtained from teaching practices to conceptualize how computers might be used to enhance the supervision of graduate counselling students (herein called beginning counsellors). Using Hill and O'Grady's (1985) list of counsellor intentions, the author devised a computer program called "Counsellor Assisted…

The aim of this study was to find ways to improve online reading and vocabulary learning. Various new types of online reading comprehension and vocabulary development programs and tests were compared in this study to consider how useful they may be for guiding individual or classroom L2 vocabulary instruction. It explored how these programs seek…

This paper outlines an approach taken to produce computer-based formative assessments for two modules in a one-year taught MSc programme in Road Management and Engineering. It presents the aims of the assessments, the taxonomy adopted to ensure that the formulation of the questions addressed learning outcomes related to the development of higher…