Vocabulary tests administered on multilingual populations should take into account the unique linguistic and cultural makeup of the population by adopting test development methods that allow responses in several languages. Our aims were to develop a picture-naming test for multilingual Lebanese school-age children (L1: Lebanese, L2: French and/or…

Purpose: This study aimed to develop and test a measure of real-time continuous speech understanding to be used with natural dialogues. Method: The measure was based on a category monitoring paradigm and employed five existing recordings of natural dialogues from which the different test categories and associated target words were derived. For…

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have the potential to reduce the workload for the second language (L2) teachers and test developers. We propose two AI distractor-generating methods for creating Chinese vocabulary items: semantic similarity and visual similarity. Semantic similarity refers to antonyms and synonyms, while visual similarity…

The report is the first systematic evaluation of the sentence equivalence item type introduced by the "GRE"® revised General Test. We adopt a validity framework to guide our investigation based on Kane's approach to validation whereby a hierarchy of inferences that should be documented to support score meaning and interpretation is…

Achievement of advanced literacy as a goal of foreign language (FL) study within the available amount of time requires that FL departments construct a well-articulated program and optimize student learning at each stage of the curriculum. One essential element of such optimization is the development of assessment procedures to place students into…

We expect that word knowledge accumulates gradually. This article draws on earlier approaches to assessing depth, but focuses on one dimension: richness of semantic knowledge. We present results from a study in which three distinct item types were developed at three levels of depth: knowledge of common usage patterns, knowledge of broad topical…

There is a growing body of international research focusing on social factors and their impact on mental health of people living in developing countries. Because of the novelty of these studies and high cost associated with developing survey tools, researchers may choose to translate pre-existing survey tools instead. Research findings are only…

The development of a 20-item semantic differential assessment instrument for measuring student attitudes toward the subject of chemistry is described (Attitude toward the Subject of Chemistry Inventory-ASCI). Instrument subscales and survey items pertain to interest and utility, anxiety, intellectual accessibility, emotional satisfaction, and…

The issue of using language proficiency or language dominance to assess programs for high school students with limited English speaking backgrounds is addressed. The development and initial analyses of the Competency Based Oral Language Assessment (COLA) are discussed. Three components of oral language are rated separately: semantics; syntax and…

A set of 150 experimental personality items was constructed for an alternate form of the word association personality worksample developed by the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation. The items were intended to possess several semantic properties hypothesized to facilitate discrimination between objective and subjective examinees. Specifically,…

This paper explores alternative approaches for facilitating efficient, evidence-centered item development for a new type of verbal reasoning item developed for use on the GRE® General Test. Results obtained in two separate studies are reported. The first study documented the development and validation of a fully automated approach for locating the…

The problem in the present study was to produce a description of the logico-semantic relations which define the semantic spaces of children and to indicate how these spaces change over time. (Authors)

Seventy-five subjects (Naval F-14 and E-2C crew members) were administered computer-based and paper-based tests of threat-parameter knowledge represented as a semantic network in order to determine the relative reliabilities and validities of these two assessment modes. Estimates of internal consistencies, equivalences, and discriminant validities…

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a set of semantic differential scales for measuring affective reactions of elementary school children. Fifty-five scales were developed for the concept "myself" and administered to 216 children in the second, fourth, and sixth grades. The results were analyzed for validity and for ontogenetic…

Examines the changes made in the Nelson Reading Skills Test, Forms 3 and 4, noting that the authors of the revised test have strengthened the test by requiring students to define words in context and by adding sections related to phonic skills, word parts, and reading rate. (HOD)