Language proficiency policies act as critical gatekeepers for multilingual international students (MIS) who intend to pursue an education at English-medium universities. The current study revisits the question of the predictive validity of a standardized English proficiency exam--International English Language Testing System (IELTS)--in comparison…

To ensure that student academic growth in a subject area is accurately captured, it is imperative that the underlying scale remains stable over time. As item parameter stability constitutes one of the factors that affects scale stability, NWEA® periodically conducts studies to check for the stability of the item parameter estimates for MAP®…

This paper studies the use of Reinforcement Learning (RL) policies for optimizing the sequencing of online learning materials to students. Our approach provides an end to end pipeline for automatically deriving and evaluating robust representations of students' interactions and policies for content sequencing in online educational settings. We…

The ability of international graduates to grasp a foreign language has become increasingly important as the demand for English-speaking workers has grown worldwide. To this end, several strategies for encouraging the use of English in academic settings have been implemented. International students' academic success may suffer if colleges refuse to…

Effective listening comprehension skills are an important prerequisite for the academic success of primary school students. However, the assessment of listening skills in the instructional language appears to have received only scant attention in the literature. Therefore, the goal of the present study was twofold. Firstly, a comprehensive…

Latinx dual language learners (DLLs) are an enormous and growing student body that faces educational adversities and inequities. One of the most salient findings to emerge from decades of educational research is that DLLs who close the gap with their monolingual peers and have the best long-term academic performance are those who develop strong…

The aim of this study was to determine whether large variations in the pass rates of different versions of the Taiwanese tour guides' English test were due to inherent differences in the difficulty of the tests. Rasch analysis software was used to measure the difficulty of all items on the 2009 and 2013 versions. It was found that the ability…

This study examined the effects of interactive note-taking, a method that relies on student interaction with teacher-provided notes, on student test scores and critical thinking skills in the high-school Spanish classroom. It also examined how interactive notetaking affected students' confidence in note-taking and critical thinking skills and…

A quantitative study was conducted to measure the acculturative stress of international students and investigate the predictors of acculturative stress. A total of 186 students participated in the survey. Results showed that 22.4% of the students in this study exceeded the normal stress level and might need counseling or psychological…

The study investigated the impact of item position in multiple-choice test on student performance at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) level in Ghana. The sample consisted of 810 Junior Secondary School (JSS) Form 3 students selected from 12 different schools. A quasi-experimental design was used. The instrument for the project…

The present study investigated the effects of providing subtitles and taking enotes on cognitive load and performance. A total of 73 English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) undergraduates learned brain anatomy and cognitive functions through multimedia programs. We used a 2 (subtitle/no) x 2 (taking enotes/no) factorial design to test the following:…

Vocabulary is an essential component of language. It is central to reading ability, writing ability and listening ability, and the most important aspect of second-language (L2) knowledge for academic achievement. The aim of this paper is to investigate quantitatively some of the factors that make some L2 words more difficult to learn and retain…

The role of explicit and implicit acquisition of grammatical rules in second language learning was examined by assessing high school students performance after several years of study on the correct use of the Spanish verbs "ser" and "estar". These two verbs are essentially equivalent in use to the English verb "to be," but there is a complex set…

As an admissions test, the SAT II: Subject Tests in foreign languages allow students to demonstrate academic competence in the selected language area. As a placement tool, the SAT II: Subject Tests in foreign languages serve the same function as the SAT II: Subject Tests do in other academic areas such as world history, chemistry, or math. SAT II:…