The use of assessments that require rater judgment (i.e., rater-mediated assessments) has become increasingly popular in high-stakes language assessments worldwide. Using a systematic literature review, the purpose of this study is to identify and explore the dominant methods for evaluating rating quality within the context of research on…

It is common practice for assessment programs to organize qualifying sessions during which the raters (often known as "markers" or "judges") demonstrate their consistency before operational rating commences. Because of the high-stakes nature of many rating activities, the research community tends to continuously explore new…

Two factors were investigated that are thought to contribute to consistency in rater scoring judgments: rater training and experience in scoring. Also considered were the relative effects of scoring rubrics and exemplars on rater performance. Experienced teachers of English (N = 20) scored recorded responses from the TOEFL iBT speaking test prior…

We addressed Deville and Chalhoub-Deville's (2006), Schoonen's (2012), and Xi and Mollaun's (2006) call for research into the contextual features that are considered related to person-by-task interactions in the framework of generalizability theory in two ways. First, we quantitatively synthesized the generalizability studies to determine the…

The assessments designed for and analyzed in this study used a task-based language design template rooted in theories of language reflecting heteroglossic language practices and funds of knowledge learning theories, which were understood as transforming classroom teaching, learning, and assessment through continua of biliteracy lenses. Using a…

The aim of the study was to investigate how raters come to their decisions when judging spoken vocabulary. Segmental rating was introduced to quantify raters' decision-making process. It is hoped that this simulated study brings fresh insight to future methodological considerations with spoken data. Twenty trainee raters assessed five Chinese…

In the present study we investigated the effect of test format on oral performance in terms of test scores and discourse features (accuracy, fluency, and complexity). Moreover, we explored how the scores obtained on different test formats relate to such features. To this end, 23 Iranian EFL learners participated in three test formats of monologue,…

While the research literature on second language (L2) fluency is replete with descriptions of fluency and its influence with regard to English as an additional language, little is known about what fluency features influence judgments of fluency in L2 French. This study reports the results of an investigation that analyzed the relationship between…

This study investigated L2 leaners' preferences between native-speaking teachers (NST) and non-native-speaking teachers (NNST) as their English pronunciation teacher, and examined the participants' accentedness and comprehensibility in L2-English pronunciation after being taught by a NST and a NNST. The participants were 30 undergraduates who were…

The analysis of raters' comments on pragmatic assessment of L2 learners is among new and understudied concepts in second language studies. To shed light on this issue, the present investigation targeted important variables such as raters' criteria and rating patterns by analyzing the interlanguage pragmatic assessment process of the Iranian…

The main objective of this article is to demonstrate with the help of learner corpus data the practical relevance of the phraseological dimension of language for writing assessment in higher education. Phraseological competence is now widely recognized as an important part of fluent and idiomatic language use, but its development has not received…

This cross-sectional study used assessments developed by the Center for Applied Linguistics to examine the oral proficiency of 218 K-8 English-proficient students in 4 Spanish immersion programs. Following a comprehensive review of assessment results for English-proficient immersion learners, the article reports findings from statistical analyses.…

Criticism of specific-purpose language (LSP) tests is often directed at their limited ability to represent fully the demands of the target language use situation. Such criticisms extend to the criteria used to assess test performance, which may fail to capture what matters to participants in the domain of interest. This paper reports on the…

Research in second language speech has often focused on listeners' accent judgment and factors that affect their perception. However, the topic of listeners' application of specific sound categories in their own perceptual judgments has not been widely investigated. The current study explored how listeners from diverse language backgrounds weighed…

This study examines the methodology of global foreign accent ratings in studies on L2 speech production. In three experiments, we test how variation in raters, range within speech samples, as well as instructions and procedures affects ratings of accent in predominantly monolingual speakers of German, non-native speakers of German, as well as…