The current study addressed the impact of computerized dynamic assessment (C-DA) on the TOEFL "i"BT listening comprehension test administered to Iranian EFL learners (n = 185) who took part in preparation courses on the TOEFL exam in some language centres in Iran. To mediate the test-takers with hints to process the listening questions,…

Integrated speaking test tasks (integrated tasks) provide reading and/or listening input to serve as the basis for test-takers to formulate their oral responses. This study examined the influence of topical knowledge on integrated speaking test performance and compared independent speaking test performance and integrated speaking test performance…

In this study, we assessed the invariance in the factor structure underlying English-language proficiency for two groups of adolescent learners in Japan: students in middle school (ages 13-15 years) and students in high school (ages 16-18 years). Language proficiency was measured using the "TOEFL Junior"® Comprehensive test, an…

Purpose: This study examined bilinguals' performance on functional executive function map tasks such as the Zoo Map from the Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome and the extent to which working memory, set-shifting, and inhibition measures predicted bilinguals' performance on these tasks. Additionally, we explored the utility of…

Interpreting, especially simultaneous interpreting, is a complex cognitive processing task that has special requirements for the interpreter's memory resources. To date, interpreting scholars have not yet reached a consensus about the interrelationship between memory and interpreting quality, but it is generally acknowledged that memory is one of…

The scoring of constructed responses may introduce construct-irrelevant factors to a test score and affect its validity and fairness. Fatigue is one of the factors that could negatively affect human performance in general, yet little is known about its effects on a human rater's scoring quality on constructed responses. In this study, we compared…

The study scrutinized the interaction between reading proficiency and strategic competence via reading comprehension test performance of Iranian EFL learners. The further concern was to scrutinize the extent to which strategic competence affected the participants' test performance. The participants were 506 postgraduate students who took a reading…

Researchers debate whether listening tasks should be supported by visuals. Most empirical research in this area has been conducted on the effects of visual support on listening comprehension tasks employing multiple-choice questions. The present study seeks to expand this research by investigating the effects of video listening passages (vs.…

An analysis of the skills necessary for performance on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) tends to support the view that there are important, although subtle, secondary dimensions present in the test. This research explored the feasibility of an item response theory (IRT) based method of modeling examinee performance on these…

The purpose of this study was to align verbal descriptions of test takers' language performance with distributions of the numerical scores they received on the three sections (Listening Comprehension, Structure and Written Expression, and Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary) of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The descriptors of…

It was hypothesized that a student's major-field area interacts with the text content in determining performance on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) reading passages. Results with 32,467 graduate school applicants, all nonnative English speakers, supported the study's hypothesis, as students in two major-field groups, the…