As the theme of the 2022 annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, cultivating equitable education systems has gained renewed attention amid an increasingly diverse society. However, systemic inequalities persist for traditionally underserved student populations. As a way to better address diverse students' needs, it is of…

Interim tests are a central component of district-wide assessment systems, yet their technical quality to guide decisions (e.g., instructional) has been repeatedly questioned. In response, the study purpose was to investigate the validity of a series of English Language Arts (ELA) interim assessments in terms of dimensionality and prediction of…

This paper presents an empirical study that investigates the role of vocabulary knowledge in listening comprehension with 33 advanced Turkish learners of English as a foreign language. The Vocabulary Levels Test (Schmitt, Schmitt & Clapham, 2001) is used to measure the vocabulary knowledge of the participants and a standardized listening test…

This research provided a comprehensive evaluation and validation of the listening section of a newly introduced computerised test, Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic). PTE Academic contains 11 item types assessing academic listening skills either alone or in combination with other skills. First, task analysis helped identify skills…

Cloze tests have been the subject of numerous studies regarding their function and use in both first language and second language contexts (e.g., Jonz & Oller, 1994; Watanabe & Koyama, 2008). From a validity standpoint, one area of investigation has been the extent to which cloze tests measure reading ability beyond the sentence level.…

Using an ex-post facto, non-experimental approach, this research examined the impact of English language proficiency and multilingualism on the academic performance of international students enrolled in a four-year university located in north central Louisiana in the United States. Data were collected through a self-reported questionnaire from 59…

Relationships between attention/executive functions and language learning were investigated in students in Grades 4 to 9 (N = 88) with and without specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in multiword syntax in oral and written language (OWL LD), word reading and spelling (dyslexia), and subword letter writing (dysgraphia). Prior…

This study investigates the relationship between test preparation and test performance on the "TOEFL iBT"® exam. Information on background variables and test preparation strategies was gathered from 14,593 respondents in China through an online survey. A Chinese standardized English test was used as a control for prior English ability.…

By centralizing the issue of test fairness in language proficiency assessments, this study responds to a call by researchers for developing greater social responsibility in the language testing agenda. As inquiries into language attitude and psychology indicate, there is an underlying uncertainty pertaining to the validity of test use and score…

Discusses the ongoing debate in the field of language assessment concerning the relative strengths of analytic versus holistic composition rating scales. Uses multiple regression analysis and exploratory factor analysis to evaluate both methods, and finds that because different rating scales measure different constructs, they cause the meaning of…