Purposes: This study uses think-alouds and cognitive interviews to provide validity evidence for an online formative assessment--i-Ready Standards Mastery (iSM) mini-assessments--which involves a heavy use of innovative items. iSM mini-assessments are intended to help teachers determine student understanding of each of the on-grade-level Common…

This mixed-methods study investigates writers' task representation and the factors affecting it in test-like and non-test-like conditions. Five advanced-level L2 writers wrote two argumentative essays each, one in test-like conditions and the other in non-test-like conditions where the participants were allowed to use all the time and online…

An English placement test (PT) is an essential component of any foundation program. It helps place students into their suitable language proficiency level so that they do not spend time learning materials below or above their levels. It also helps teachers to prepare teaching materials to students of similar levels (Brown, 2004; Illinois, 2012).…

This study explores and describes different viewpoints on Computer Based Assessment (CBA) by using Q methodology to identify perspectives of students and instructors and classify these into perceptional typologies. Thirty undergraduate students taking CBA courses and fifteen instructors adopting CBA into their curriculum at a university in Korea,…

Language test preparation has often been studied within the consequential validity framework in relation to ethics, equity, fairness, and washback of assessment. The use of independent and integrated speaking tasks in the "TOEFL iBT"® test represents a significant development and innovation in assessing speaking ability in academic…

Remedial mathematics at the college level has evidenced strikingly low retention and passing rates. It has been shown that at least 25% of the variation in student performance is explained by students' affective variables such as attitudes, study skills, and mathematics anxiety. This study endeavored to address affective variables by: (a)…

Introduction: Use of the Internet for open Web searches is common among university students in academic learning tasks. The tools used by students to find relevant information for online assessment tasks were investigated and their information seeking behaviour was documented to explore the impact on assessment design. Method: A mixed methods…

Test preparation for high-stakes English language tests has received increasing research attention in the language assessment field; however, little is known about what aspects of test preparation students attend to and value. In this study, we considered the perspectives of 12 Chinese students who were enrolled in various academic programs in a…

This study compares the language learner and test-taking strategies used by Chinese-speaking graduate students when confronted with familiar versus unfamiliar topics in an English multiple-choice format reading comprehension test. Thirty-six participants at a large mid-western university performed three tasks: A content knowledge vocabulary…

Pedagogic Conversational Agents are computer applications that can interact with students in natural language. They have been used with satisfactory results on the instruction of several domains. The authors believe that they could also be useful for the instruction of Secondary Physics and Chemistry Education. Therefore, in this paper, the…

The aim of this report is to present the findings of the 3rd and 4th phases of a longitudinal study into the impact of changes in the TOEFL® exam on teaching in test preparation classrooms. Phase 1 (2003-2004) described the type of teaching taking place in 12 TOEFL preparation classrooms before the introduction of the new TOEFL. Phase 2…

Over the past decade, listening comprehension tests have been converting to computer-based tests that include visual input. However, little research is available to suggest how test takers engage with different types of visuals on such tests. The present study compared a series of still images to video in academic computer-based tests to determine…

Describes a study that was conducted to determine how error patterns and a clinical approach to assessing third grade students' mathematical knowledge interrelate to design a computer diagnostic system for subtraction. Error patterns are examined, and computer diagnostic systems and analytical testing are discussed. (34 references) (LRW)

The purpose of this report is to present the findings of the first phase in a longitudinal study of the impact of changes in the TOEFL® test on teaching and learning in test preparation classrooms. Observations were carried out and interviews conducted with teachers, students, and directors of studies at 10 institutions in six countries in Central…