The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the university admissions and proficiency testing landscape. One change has been the meteoric rise in use of the fully automated Duolingo English Test (DET) for university entrance purposes, offering test-takers a cheaper, shorter, accessible alternative. This rapid response study is the first to investigate the…

The present article gives an overview of several studies on the predictive validity of the C-test. In the first part of the article, we discuss the construct validity of this test format. Only if the underlying construct of this test is understood, can a justification for high predictive validity be made. In the second part, we discuss several…

Although most international students arrive with required language qualifications, many struggle with the linguistic demands of their programmes. This study explored whether the test-preparation industry undermines the qualifications with which students arrive. English proficiency of 153 Chinese student in the UK was tested on the Duolingo English…

English language programmes provide established pathways for international students seeking university admission in countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom. In order to refer international applicants to appropriate levels and durations of English language support prior to matriculation into their main course of study, pathway providers…

This article reports on a study of foreign students' success in higher education in Norway and focuses specifically on the relation between academic success and students' proficiency level of Norwegian as measured by a CEFR-based university entrance test. This study is distinguished from prior studies because it sets out to investigate not only…

Data from 787 international undergraduate students at an urban university in the United States were used to demonstrate the importance of separating a sample into meaningful subgroups in order to demonstrate the ability of an English language assessment to predict the first-year grade point average (GPA). For example, when all students were pooled…

In the last 15 years or so, language testing practitioners have increasingly favored assessing vocabulary in context. The discrete-point vocabulary measure used in the old version of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) has long been criticized for encouraging test candidates to memorize wordlists out of context although test items…

In this study, the author examined the validity of the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) for non-U.S. students (N = 75) through a predictive validation procedure in which applicants were given the predictor test but the test results were not used to admit students. The author's business school admitted students to three overseas MBA…