Given the significance of the test fairness, this study aimed to investigate a reading comprehension test for evidence of differential item functioning (DIF) based on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' gender and their mode of learning (conventional vs. distance learning). To this end, 514 EFL learners were asked to take a 30-item…

This study is an exploratory analysis of examinee behavior in a large-scale language proficiency test. Despite a number-right scoring system with no penalty for guessing, we found that 16% of examinees omitted at least one answer and that women were more likely than men to omit answers. Item-response theory analyses treating the omitted responses…

This study aimed to examine the effect of test format on test performance by comparing Multiple Choice (MC) and Constructed Response (CR) vocabulary tests in an EFL setting. Also, this paper investigated the function of gender in MC and CR vocabulary measures. To this end, five 20-item stem-equivalent vocabulary tests (CR, and 3-, 4-, 5-, and…

The present study addresses a significant but neglected aspect of vocabulary teaching in general and teaching collocations, in particular, which is color term collocations. A significant number of idioms involve use color terms such as blue blood, black death, red tape, black sheep, and yellow press that are significant to study in the context of…

Classroom practices, materials and teaching methods in language classes have changed a lot in the last decades and continue to evolve; however, the commonly used techniques to test students' foreign language skills have not changed much regardless of the recent awareness in Bloom's taxonomy. Testing units at schools rely mostly on multiple choice…

This study investigates the impact that study in Australia has on the lexical knowledge of Saudi Arabian students. It focuses on: 1) the effects that the length of study in Australia has on the acquisition of lexical collocations, as reflected by lexical knowledge tests, and 2) whether there is a significant gender difference in the acquisition of…

The present study aimed at investigating the effect of an instructional program on vocational educational students' proficiency of vocational educational terms in English. The study sample consisted of 60 male and female students from Al-Balqa'a Applied University, Jordan. Moreover, the study investigated the effect the students' gender and…

We present the Homeostasis Concept Inventory (HCI), a 20-item multiple-choice instrument that assesses how well undergraduates understand this critical physiological concept. We used an iterative process to develop a set of questions based on elements in the Homeostasis Concept Framework. This process involved faculty experts and undergraduate…

This study investigated the role of item formats in the performance of 206 nonnative speakers of English on expressive skills (i.e., speaking and writing). Test scores were drawn from the field test of the "Pearson Test of English Academic" for Chinese, French, Hebrew, and Korean native speakers. Four item formats, including…

Reading and understanding a written text is one of the most important skills in English learning.This study attempts to benchmark Year Five students' reading abilities of fifteen rural schools in a district in Malaysia. The objectives of this study are to develop a set of standardised written reading comprehension and a set of indicators to inform…

This study explores how readers' interest, gender, and test types (multiple-choice questions, Yes/No questions, and short-answer formats) affect second language reading comprehension in three different levels and five different categories of topics. A questionnaire was administered to 168 Turkish EFL students to find out the gender-oriented topic…

The present study investigated the impact of textual input enhancement and explicit rule presentation on 93 Iranian EFL learners' intake of simple past tense. Three intact general English classes in Tabriz Azad University were randomly assigned to: 1) a control group; 2) a TIE group; and 3) a TIE plus explicit rule presentation group. All…

Validity, reliability and item analysis are critical to the process of evaluating the quality of an educational measurement. The present study evaluates the quality of an assessment constructed to measure elementary school student's achievement in English. In this study, the survey model of descriptive research was used as a research method.…

The present study intends to assess the ESL students' performance in tenses at secondary school level. Grade 10 students were the target population of the study. A sample of 396 students (255 male and 141 female) was selected through convenience sampling technique from the District of Bahawalnagar, Pakistan. A test focusing on five different types…

The present study examined the process and product effects of note-taking strategy training on Iranian EFL learners' comprehension and retention of written material, with gender as a moderating variable. Intermediate undergraduate EFL learners (N = 108) were assigned to experimental and control groups. The Experimental (intervention) Group…