Apart from providing a bird's eye view of a given domain of inquiry (Ioannidis et al., 2015), systematic reviews such as methodological syntheses offer a magnifying glass on prevalent existing problems in primary research and furnish empirically grounded solutions to rectify these issues (Page et al., 2021). As survey research in second language…

Existing methods used to validate self-report questionnaires in foreign language teaching effectiveness have relied on Classical Test Theory (CTT). However, the use of CTT approaches limits the reliability and validity of self-report instruments. The Rasch Model, which is based on the principles of objective measurement, addresses some of the…

This study created and validated the Early Language Leadership Attitude instrument in order to understand elementary principals' attitudes towards early start language programs in the state of Connecticut. The Early Language Leadership Attitude instrument assesses attitudes towards early start language programming with 8 items. The 5-point Likert…

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of foreign language anxiety or xenoglossophobia, for college students enrolled in foreign language courses at The Southern University. The topic was guided by Krashen's theory of second language acquisition, as it relates to many aspects of the actual…

The study aimed to elicit information from Vietnamese EFL university instructors about their knowledge and skills regarding the principles, theory, and practices of language assessment by means of revision and validation of the Language Assessment Literacy--Revised Vietnam (LAL-RV), which was previously developed by Kremmel and Harding (2020). A…

Pragmatic competence has been increasingly recognized as a component of academic language proficiency assessment (Youn, 2018). However, the practicality of administering L2 pragmatic competence assessments involving interlocutors remains problematic (e.g., high labor cost) (Ikeda, 2017). The pandemic makes it even more difficult to administer…

Although theoretical approaches to second language acquisition (SLA) have varied in their perspectives and directives on vocabulary teaching and learning, the consensus is that vocabulary knowledge is essential to second language (L2) acquisition. In classroom based settings, students of foreign languages spend the better part of their initial…

The purpose of this multiple-paper dissertation is to design a digital game and stealth assessments within the game to assess young second language learners' Chinese reading proficiency. In Chapter 2 (Paper 1), I describe the game designed for this dissertation and how it was implemented in a dual language immersion classroom. This study found…

The present dissertation investigated the impact of scales/scoring methods and prompt linguistic features on the measurement quality of L2 English elicited imitation (EI). Scales/scoring methods are an important feature for the validity and reliability of L2 EI test, but less is known (Yan et al., 2016). Prompt linguistic features are also known…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the use of reading strategies being implemented in an urban school district in the Southeast. This study was framed on the SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) Model (Echevarria et al., 2017). SIOP is an instructional framework that has been used in K-12 schools since the 1980s. It is a…

English has emerged as an international language. The hegemonic positioning of English is problematic for previously colonized places such as the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The remote coral atoll Pacific Island nation of the Republic of the Marshall Islands has a history of colonization. Critical Literacy supports reflective analysis of…

Achieving sufficient proficiency in academic writing is critical in university level setting. It is not surprising hence, that the admission to English speaking universities is usually conditioned not only by a particular total score from Standardized tests of English proficiency, e.g., TOEFL or IELTs but also a specific band score in writing. To…

Under the framework of item response theory (IRT) and generalizability (G-) theory, this study examined the effects of item difficulty on rating reliability and construct validity on both the constructed-response (CR) items and essay items on English examinations. The data collected for this study were students' scores and responses on the two…

Some scientists believe that speaking a second language could confer lasting cognitive advantages in aging and stave off the onset of dementia (Bialystok et al., 2007; Craik et al., 2010; Abutalebi & Rietbergen, 2014; Grant et al., 2014; Woumans et al., 2015; Klein et al., 2016; Abutalebi & Green, 2016; Smirnov et al., 2019). However, this…

Syntactic (i.e., grammatical) complexity refers to the range and the degree of sophistication of the forms that appear in language production (Ortega, 2003). This concept has long been regarded as an important construct of language proficiency and has been actively investigated in the field of second language (L2) writing. Syntactic complexity is…