Thinking skills play a critical role in determining language performance. Recent advancement in cognitive diagnostic modelling (CDM) provides a powerful tool for obtaining fine-grained information regarding these thinking skills during reading. Studies are scant, however, exploring the relations between thinking skills and language performance,…

In Dynamic Assessment (DA), the observation that individuals respond differently to support, or mediation, is important for diagnoses of development. The concept of learning potential refers to openness to mediation, i.e., the extent of change to performance when mediation is available, which may suggest learners will need less overall instruction…

Language assessment literacy (LAL), an increasingly prominent research topic, has generated substantial literature in language testing and assessment. Thus far, there seems to be few comprehensive reviews on this research topic. The current scoping study reviewed a total of 81 papers by synthesising LAL studies published from 2008 to 2020. It…

This paper presents a methodology for directly aligning 'can do' frameworks to each other. The methodology, inspired by the manual for relating examinations to the "Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment" (CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2009) and Kane's (2004, 2013) interpretative argument, takes…

For linguistically diverse communities, researchers have long questioned assessment approaches that disregard learners' multilingualism. Our study offers potential approaches that center contextualized, multilingual knowledges and skills within classroom-based language assessments with one teacher and his English foreign language courses for…

Diagnostic assessment is increasingly being recognized as a potentially beneficial tool for teaching and learning (Jang, 2012). There have been calls in the research literature for students to receive diagnostic feedback and for researchers to investigate how such feedback is used by students. Therefore, this study examined how students…

A revised schoolwide curriculum for New Zealand was implemented in 2010. This new curriculum has placed a new and strong emphasis on foreign language (L2) learning and has precipitated a reevaluation of high-stakes assessment practices to ensure that senior school assessments will be aligned to new curriculum requirements. The reevaluation has led…

This article presents an interview with Professor Kenji Ohtomo who retired in March 2006 from the post of Dean, College of Applied International Studies, Tokiwa University, Mito, in Japan. Professor Ohtomo is currently a Professor Emeritus at the University of Tsukuba and Honorary President of the Japan Language Testing Association, of which he…

The Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) has recently moved from norm-referenced to standards-referenced assessment, including the incorporation of a substantial school-based summative oral assessment component into the compulsory English language subject in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE). Starting in…