The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) oral proficiency interview -- computer (OPIc) testing system represents an ambitious effort in language assessment: Assessing oral proficiency in over a dozen languages, on the same scale, from virtually anywhere at any time. Especially for users in contexts where multiple foreign…

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 presents and analyses a classroom-based assessment method to test students' speaking skills in a variety of professional settings in tourism. The assessment system has been implemented in the Communication in English for Tourism course, as part of the Tourism Management degree programme, at Florida Universitaria (affiliated to the…

In high-stakes writing assessments, rater training in the use of a rating scale does not eliminate variability in grade attribution. This realisation has been accompanied by research that explores possible sources of rater variability, such as rater background or rating scale type. However, there has been little consideration thus far of…

Past practice of operationalizing the concept of fakeability of psychological tests is reviewed. The strengths and weaknesses of these indices are discussed in the light of a proposed new definition of fakeability based upon Naylor's model of measurement accuracy. (Author/JKS)

Three substudies of effects of different formats on student ratings of faculty teaching effectiveness were conducted. One substudy investigated Kinds of Keys, Agreement, Evaluation, and Needs Improvement. The second, NO TUP, (New Observation of Teaching of University Professor Rating Scale), investigated numbers of positive rating categories. The…

Investigated reliability and dimensionality of Bales's Interpersonal Rating Forms (IRF) using volunteer subjects (N=266) enrolled in undergraduate communications course. Results documented shortcomings of IRF as a measuring instrument finding the subscales neither reliable nor dimensionally structured; only 2 of 18 items in each subscale are…

Subjects are asked to answer six questions, partly with a frequency and partly by marking a verbally anchored scale with five categories. Some univariate and multivariate analyses are performed to elucidate the relations between variables with the two different modes of response. Although there are similarities in results for the two types of…

These rating scales are intended for evaluation of student pilot performance. Each student is evaluated individually on the basis of video recordings of the student in flight. Ten point rating lines are used for the ten criterion performance elements of each of three maneuvers, (1) Final Turn to Landing, (2) Lazy Eight, and (3) Vertical S "A".…

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R), one of the most commonly used tests of cognitive ability, is difficult to administer accurately. The purpose of this study was primarily to assess interrater agreement on the WISC-R Administration Observational Checklist (WAOC), a new observational instrument that can be used by an…

In attempting to meet school-board mandates for competency-based testing in composition, educators must devise the most acceptable testing programs they can. This paper describes a design (the Paul Diederich system) for testing students' writing skills, which yields statistically reliable data on individual students, and reports on a New Orleans…

This paper is part 3 of Research Department Report Number 123, "Exploring the T.R.Q.: An Assessment of the Effectiveness of the Teachers' Rating Questionnaire," which gave questionnaire users information necessary to tailor the instrument to their own needs. Retention of TRQ questions which generated good distributions of teacher ratings…

This report assesses the validity, reliability, and efficiency of the Teachers' Rating Questionnaire (TRQ), a pupils' school success measure developed in connection with a 1961 longitudinal Study of Achievement. TRQ ratings on nearly 14,000 pupils, gathered in the Study of Achievement and a New Canadian Report, constituted the data source.…

One implication of attitude self-ratings, that scales may become recalibrated transiently, was investigated conservatively using hypothesized shifts of data from 368 college students rating the desirability of taking senior comprehensive examinations. Results support the validity and reliability of simple graphic rating scales as measures of…

This study illustrates the use of three least-squares models to control for rater effects in performance evaluation: (1) ordinary least squares (OLS); (2) weighted least squares (WLS); and (3) OLS subsequent to applying a logistic transformation to observed ratings (LOG-OLS). The three models were applied to ratings obtained from four…