Many institutions around the world use the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to assess test-takers' proficiency in English, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where a given Band score (or its equivalent) is required for direct entry to majors taught in English. However, despite the test's importance and despite being one…

This article examines the conceivable rationales as to why Korean students' English-speaking proficiency scores are not as outstanding as other international standardized test scores such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Despite the efforts of the…

The purpose of this research is to evaluate secondary school Turkish language assessment tools in the sense of PISA reading skills criteria. To this end, document analysis, one of qualitative research methods, was employed in the current study. The research data were collected from 82 assessment tools prepared by 23 teachers. The questions…

For the first time, PISA 2025 will assess foreign language skills on a global scale. This paper provides a framework for collecting policy and contextual information on foreign language learning from students, parents, teachers, school principals and government officials. The framework will be used to guide the PISA 2025 Foreign Language…

The present work seeks to establish a comparison between two different and distant evaluation tools applied to the Dominican student population in order to measure the efficiency of our educational system in the recent years, one of them measured the quality of Dominican education in three areas (the PISA Test), whereas the other tested the…

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assesses the extent to which 15-year-old students near the end of their compulsory education have acquired the knowledge and skills essential for full participation in modern societies. The assessment does not just ascertain whether students can reproduce knowledge; it also examines…

Item Response Theory (IRT) is a ubiquitous model for understanding humans based on their responses to questions, used in fields as diverse as education, medicine and psychology. Large modern datasets offer opportunities to capture more nuances in human behavior, potentially improving test scoring and better informing public policy. Yet larger…

The study aims to develop students' higher cognitive skills e.g. analysis, synthesis and assessment and to increase their academic successes by reflecting their cognitive skills in psychomotor skills in practice with the help of lesson study. Therefore, the aim of the study is to increase students' English as a foreign language learning level.…

This paper traces the complexities, contingencies and tensions involved in the creation of a new, 'scientific' assessment in what we call Prefecture A in Japan. We start with a thick, granular description of the complicated and ongoing narrative of a new policy emergence. This descriptive account serves as a precursor to our application of an…

In this paper we investigate the link between the language in which pupils take the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test and the scores they achieve in this assessment, focusing upon the case of Wales. Using five rounds of PISA data and an instrumental variable approach, we show how pupils who took the test in Welsh score…

Background: English language proficiency is considered a basic skill that students from different language backgrounds are expected to master, independent of whether they are native or non-native speakers. Tests that measure language proficiency in non-native speakers are typically linked to the common European framework of reference for…

Those who work in second- and foreign-language testing often find Koretz's concern for validity inferences under high-stakes (VIHS) conditions both welcome and familiar. While the focus of the article is more narrowly on the potential for two instructional responses to test-based accountability, "reallocation" and "coaching,"…

International achievement comparison studies assess students on core subjects such as Reading, Mathematics and Science. Students who do not speak the test language at home can be expected to be disadvantaged because of language proficiency. The test language effect has not been given sufficient attention. The present study investigated probable…

While much of the work in language testing is concerned with constructing quality tests in order to measure language knowledge in reliable and valid ways, there has been a significant movement in language testing research that examines tests in the context of their use in education and society. This line of research exits from the notion that…

This article looks at the changes made to examinations in England over recent decades and asks about the politics behind the changes. It considers how increasingly centralised the assessment regime has become, moving from a system where teachers could have a say in how pupils are assessed to a regime dominated by government approved tests. It…