The current paper intends to exploit the Many Facet Rasch Model to investigate and compare the impact of situations (items) and raters on test takers' performance on the Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) and Discourse Self-Assessment Tests (DSAT). In this study, the participants were 110 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at…

Local item dependency (LID) occurs when test-takers' responses to one test item are affected by their responses to another. It can be problematic if it causes inflated reliability estimates or distorted person and item measures. The cued-recall reading comprehension test in Hu and Nation's (2000) well-known and influential coverage--comprehension…

This study is a conceptual replication of Ellis' 'Measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of a second language: A psychometric study', published in "Studies in Second Language Acquisition" (2005), aiming to establish the importance of including belief statements (hypothesized to increase processing demands) in the design of Elicited…

This study represents the inaugural attempt at assessing the authenticity of the tasks encompassed in the IELTS Speaking Module. The evaluation is conducted from the vantage points of applied linguistics and general education, and serves to enhance comprehension of authenticity and authentic assessment. In order to achieve this objective, an…

Given the significant global influence of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CEFR) on English language education, this study deals with aligning a university's academic reading tests to the CEFR. It aimed at validating the test construct of the academic reading tests in relation to the…

This paper investigates the validation of the computer-based listening subtest in the "Certificate of English for Primary Teachers" (CEPT), which is addressed to in-service primary teachers who work in state Italian schools. Since 2004, these teachers, specialists in other subjects, have been asked by the Italian Ministry of Education to…

Language testing and assessment have grown in popularity and gained significance in the last few decades, and there is a rising need for assessment literate stakeholders in the field of language education. As teachers play a major role in assessing students, there is a need to make sure they have the right level of assessment knowledge and skills…

Relatively late mastery of scalar implicatures has been suggested to correlate with children's immature processing capacities, such as their limited working memory. Yet, many studies that tested for a link between children's working memory and their computation of scalar implicatures have failed to find any correlation. One possible reason is that…

Although an accurate measure of vocabulary size is integral to understanding the proficiency of language learners, the validity of multiple-choice (M/C) vocabulary tests to determine this has been questioned due to users guessing correct answers which inflates scores. In this paper the nature of guessing and partial knowledge used when taking the…

To evaluate the sensitivity of multiple-choice cloze (MCC) tests that use different types of items--syntactic, semantic, and connective--to assess reading ability, 170 English as a foreign language (EFL) students in a vocational college in Taiwan were recruited. The students were divided into two groups (level A and level B) based on their scores…

Language placement tests (LPTs) are used to assess students' proficiency in a progressive manner in the target language. Based on their performance, students are assigned to stepped language courses. These tests are usually considered low stakes because they do not have significant consequences in students' lives, which is perhaps the reason why…

Vocabulary size measures serve important functions, not only with respect to placing learners at appropriate levels on language courses but also with a view to examining the progress of learners. One of the widely reported formats suitable for these purposes is the Yes/No vocabulary test. The primary aim of this study was to introduce and provide…

This report describes the development of efficient second language (L2) writing assessment tasks designed specifically for low-proficiency learners of English to be included in the "TOEFL® Essentials"™ test. Based on the can-do descriptors of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages for the A1 through B1 levels of…

Literature has long been used as a tool for language teaching and learning. In the New Academic Structure in Hong Kong, it has become an important element in the senior secondary English language curriculum to promote communicative language teaching (CLT) with a process-oriented approach. However, as in many other English as a second or foreign…

This article attempts to present emotioncy as a potential source of test bias to inform the analysis of test item performance. Emotioncy is defined as a hierarchy, ranging from "exvolvement" (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) to "involvement" (inner and arch), to emphasize the emotions evoked by the senses. This study…