Vocabulary knowledge strongly predicts second language reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Yet, few tests have been developed to assess vocabulary knowledge in French. The primary aim of this pilot study was to design and initially validate the Context-Aligned Two Thousand Test (CA-TTT), following open research practices. The CA-TTT is a…

This study compared holistic and analytic marking methods for their effects on parameter estimation (of examinees, raters, and items) and rater cognition in assessing speech act production in L2 Chinese. Seventy American learners of Chinese completed an oral Discourse Completion Test assessing requests and refusals. Four first-language (L1)…

This study explored the interplay between content knowledge and reading ability in a large-scale multistage adaptive English for academic purposes (EAP) reading assessment at a range of ability levels across 1-12 graders. The datasets for this study were item-level responses to the reading tests of ACCESS for ELLs Online 2.0. A sample of 10,000…

Vocabulary's relationship to reading proficiency is frequently cited as a justification for the assessment of L2 written receptive vocabulary knowledge. However, to date, there has been relatively little research regarding which modalities of vocabulary knowledge have the strongest correlations to reading proficiency, and observed differences have…

This study aims to investigate patterns of variation in the interplay of L2 language ability and general reading comprehension skills in L2 reading, by comparing item-level effects of test-takers' results on L1 and L2 reading comprehension tests. The material comes from more than 500,000 people tested on L1 (Swedish) and L2 (English) in the…

This study describes the adaptation process of a vocabulary knowledge test for British Sign Language (BSL) into American Sign Language (ASL) and presents results from the first round of pilot testing with 20 deaf native ASL signers. The web-based test assesses the strength of deaf children's vocabulary knowledge by means of different mappings of…

This study compared three common vocabulary test formats, the Yes/No test, the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS), and the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT), as measures of vocabulary difficulty. Vocabulary difficulty was defined as the item difficulty estimated through Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis. Three tests were given to 165 Japanese students,…

Reading-to-write (RTW) tasks are becoming increasingly popular and have already been used in several high-stakes English proficiency exams, either replacing or complementing a prompt-based essay test. However, it is still not clear that what accounts for successful or unsuccessful performance on an integrated reading-writing task is owing to the…

This study tracked gender differential item functioning (DIF) on the English subtest of the Korean College Scholastic Aptitude Test (KCSAT) over a nine-year period across three data points, using both the Mantel-Haenszel (MH) and item response theory likelihood ratio (IRT-LR) procedures. Further, the study identified two factors (i.e. reading…

This study piloted test items that will be used in a computer-delivered and scored test of productive grammatical ability in English as a second language (ESL). Findings from research on learners' development of morphosyntactic, syntactic, and functional knowledge were synthesized to create a framework of grammatical features. We outline the…

Noting the widespread use of multiple-choice items in tests in English language education in Thailand, this study compared their effect against that of constructed-response items. One hundred and fifty-two university undergraduates took a test of English structure first in constructed-response format, and later in three, stem-equivalent…

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…

This paper describes the development and validation of the Cognate Awareness Test (CAT), which measures cognate awareness in Spanish-speaking English Language Learners (ELLs) in fourth and fifth grade. An investigation of differential performance on the two subtests of the CAT (cognates and noncognates) provides evidence that the instrument is…

Results from the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) indicate that English as a Second Language (ESL) and English Literacy Development (ELD) students have comparatively low success and high deferral rates. This study examined the 2002 and 2003 OSSLT test performances of ESL/ELD and non-ESL/ELD students in order to identify and…