Just like buildings, tests are designed and built for specific purposes, people, and uses. However, both buildings and tests grow and change over time as the needs of their users change. Sometimes, they are also both used for purposes other than those intended in the original designs. This paper explores architecture as a metaphor for language…

The importance of student assessment, particularly for summative purposes, has increased greatly over the past thirty years. At the same time, emphasis on including all students in assessment programs has also increased. Assessment programs, whether they are large-scale, district-based, or teacher developed, have traditionally attempted to assess…

This study criticizes current approaches to language test development for their restrictive views of how language should be measured. Language tests are based either on an input component (what goes into a test) or an output component (how should the test be measured). An integration of both components on language tests is advocated. The…

Links the theory of washback with the broader concept of impact in educational measurement and to the recent debate on construct validity associated with Messick. Notes that for many years it was asserted that language tests negatively impacted teaching and learning, an impact known as washback. (25 references) (Author/CK)

Addresses the role of ethics and its limits in professional activities such as language testing. Consideration is given to language testing as a means of political control, the definition of the test construct, the effects of language tests on the various stakeholders involved, and criteria for promoting ethicality in language testing. (six…

Presents preliminary thoughts on the testing of video language-learning courses, including a review of the literature and an examination of the research on the subject. The paper lists subtest types and gives an example of a test. Guidelines are offered regarding the creation of appropriate tests, and a direction for future research is suggested.…

Discussion of the use of language aptitude tests for United States government workers looks at the learner types they must assess and contexts in which a newly-learned language will be used. In general, employees selected for language learning are either current employees already productively engaged in second language use or new hires with…

The present study focuses on the task characteristics of reading passages and key sentences in a test of second language reading. Using a new methodological approach to describe variation in test task characteristics and explore how differences in these characteristics might relate to examinee performance, it posed the two following research…

Compares the empirical performance of C-tests with other representatives of the family of reduced redundancy tests--classical cloze, cloze-elide, multiple-choice cloze--using the Duisburg English Language Test for Advanced Students as the criterion for empirical validity. Findings reveal that the C-Test emerges as the most economical and reliable…

An attempt was made to further the understanding of foreign language proficiencies and to formulate methods of testing them. Language testing is needed as a criterion of the efficacy of teaching. Consideration of the curriculum and analysis of the texts used would aid in test construction. A discussion of the design and content of language tests…

This guide first points out the difficulty and the lack of reliability involved in using tests to evaluate the abilities of children from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. Suggestions are then given for using existing evaluation techniques to test the English language proficiency of children at kindergarten level. The following…

Two studies at the Defense Language Institute (California) investigated the contribution of several variables to prediction of post-language-training proficiency: (1) scores on a general vocational aptitude battery and a language aptitude battery, both used to screen potential students; (2) scores on other cognitive measures not used in the…

The Language Aptitude Symposium papers include: "Prognostication and Language Aptitude Testing, 1925-62" (Bernard Spolsky); "You, the Government, and Language Aptitude" (Government Roundtable; abstract only); "Styles of Thinking and Learning" (Robert Sternberg); "Current Research in Measuring Listening"…