This article reviews a selected sample of 70 empirical studies in journal articles and doctoral dissertations on language assessment in China between 2011 and 2018. Following a brief introduction to the history and current state of language assessment in China, the article presents a critical review of language assessment research on six themes…

This article reviews recent studies on English language teaching (ELT) in South Korea, where a great deal of research has been produced in recent years in local journals. In this article we review 95 studies from a pool of some 1,200 published between 2009 and 2014 on English language teaching and learning, focusing on research within the public…

Item-writing considerations in creating instruments using Likert-type scales, according to Michael Busch, include semantics of labeling response choices and number of response categories. Jean Turner discusses problems regarding the use of Likert-scale questionnaires for L2 research, for instance the cultural background of language learners being…

Children ages 1 1/2 to 3 years were tested to determine their comprehension of the terms "in,""on," and "under." It was found that children who listened to a pretest story involving the objects to be used in the study showed markedly better comprehension of the terms than children not exposed to the pretest activity.…

Reviews the role of statistical hypothesis testing in research, discusses the problems with multiple t tests, indicates when they are a problem, and suggests a compromise solution. (one reference) (JL)

A discussion of the difficulties in testing language production in educationally subnormal children, and the development of a procedure attempting to overcome those difficulties. (RY)

Different experimental techniques for empirical assessment of children's linguistic ability have produced conflicting evidence. A number of such contradictions are discussed, in the context of an analysis of the potential weaknesses, and consequent requirements, of both comprehension and production tasks. (A commentary by P. L. Harris appears on…

In an examination of speaker-induced variability in an auditory perceptual test, recordings of the PBK word list were mixed with white noise and played to a group of normal hearing college students and a group of normal hearing junior high school students. (Author/CL)

This report describes research in progress at Duisburg University on a modification of the cloze principle in language testing. Four problem areas in classical cloze tests are isolated and discussed, namely, text selection, test construction, scoring, and interpretation. The "C-tests" in the process of development use the theoretical…

Noting that the question of how to evaluate the effect of an educational program on child language reduces to the question of how to analyze child language, the author discusses ways to measure those functional aspects of child language which may be most sensitive to both environmental interferences and environmental facilitations. (Author/JM)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR RESPONSES TO MULTIPLE-CHOICE ITEMS ON READING COMPREHENSION TESTS AND THE EFFECTS OF CONTENT WORDS AND FUNCTION WORDS IN SUPPLYING INFORMATION FOR THE CORRECT COMPLETION OF MULTIPLE-CHOICE ITEMS WERE STUDIED IN AN EXPERIMENT AT CAMPBELL COLLEGE. PARAGRAPHS WITH ACCOMPANYING MULTIPLE-CHOICE ITEMS SAMPLED FROM READING…

Many specific implications for classroom reading instruction can be derived from work in linguistics or psycholinguistics. (JH)

AN INTRODUCTION WHICH STATES THE PURPOSES OF AN EVALUATION OF FLES PROGRAMS AND STRESSES THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VALUE JUDGMENT AND EVALUATION IS FOLLOWED BY A DISCUSSION OF THE RELATION BETWEEN EVALUATION AND CURRICULUM. TEST AND MEASUREMENT PROCEDURES FOR EVALUATING FLES PROGRAMS ARE THEN SUGGESTED. A CONCLUDING SECTION INDICATES THE DESIGN OF A…

The purpose of this research was to compare two different forms of a placement test in French as a second language at the post-secondary level, a conventional test and a computerized test. First, expectations regarding a placement test as a measure of general proficiency are discussed and principles of adaptive testing that have been used to…

Two members and a former member of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) Policy Council respond to Raimes' concerns about the TOEFL Test of Written English, particularly regarding the Educational Testing Service's research agenda and its effect on English-as-a-Second-Language instruction and graduate school admission. (17 references)…