This article provides a single, common-case study of a test retrofit project at one Colombian university. It reports on how the test retrofit project was carried out and describes the different areas of language assessment literacy the project afforded local teacher stakeholders. This project was successful in that it modified the test constructs…

The Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE-A), a widely used high-stakes language proficiency test for university admissions and migration purposes, underwent a notable change from a three-hour to a two-hour version in November 2021. The implementation of the new version has prompted inquiries into the washback effects on various stakeholders.…

Many large-scale educational surveys have moved from linear form design to multistage testing (MST) design. One advantage of MST is that it can provide more accurate latent trait [theta] estimates using fewer items than required by linear tests. However, MST generates incomplete response data by design; hence, questions remain as to how to…

The teaching of English as a foreign language in Indonesia has a long history, and it is always important to ask whether the assessment of the students' language skills has been valid and reliable. A screening of many articles in several prominent databases reveal that a number of evaluation studies have been done by Indonesian scholars in the…

This study investigated the effects of linking potentially multidimensional test forms using the fixed item parameter calibration. Forms had equal or unequal total test difficulty with and without confounding difficulty. The mean square errors and bias of estimated item and ability parameters were compared across the various confounding tests. The…

Language placement tests (LPTs) are used to assess students' proficiency in a progressive manner in the target language. Based on their performance, students are assigned to stepped language courses. These tests are usually considered low stakes because they do not have significant consequences in students' lives, which is perhaps the reason why…

For many years, question choice has been used in some UK public examinations, with students free to choose which questions they answer from a selection (within certain parameters). There has been little published research on choice of exam questions in recent years in the UK. In this article we distinguish different scenarios in which choice…

The purpose of this study is to describe, critically analyse and discuss the Swedish system of assessing ethics education in compulsory school through national tests. The publicly available tests from 2013 for grades six and nine have been studied as have the assessment instructions for teachers. Staff responsible for the test construction have…

Turkish and Foreign Languages Research and Application Center (TÖMER) is one of the important institutions for learning Turkish as a foreign language. In these institutions, proficiency tests are applied at the end of each level. However, test applications in TÖMERs vary between each center as there is no shared program in teaching Turkish as a…

The purpose of this article of reflection is to raise awareness of how poor design of language assessments may have detrimental effects, if crucial qualities and technicalities of test design are not met. The article first discusses these central qualities for useful language assessments. Then, guidelines for creating listening assessments, as an…

David Thissen, a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Quantitative Program at the University of North Carolina, has consulted and served on technical advisory committees for assessment programs that use item response theory (IRT) over the past couple decades. He has come to the conclusion that there are usually two purposes…

Current science education reform efforts emphasize teaching K-12 science using hands-on, inquiry activities. For maximum learning and probability of implementation among inservice teachers, these strategies must be modeled in college science courses for preservice teachers. About a decade ago, Morehead State University revised their science…

One major issue with large-scale assessments is that the respondents might give no responses to many items, resulting in less accurate estimations of both assessed abilities and item parameters. This report studies how the types of items affect the item-level nonresponse rates and how different methods of treating item-level nonresponses have an…

Developing and writing assessment items that measure teachers' knowledge is an intricate and complex undertaking. In this paper, we begin with an overview of what is known about measuring teacher knowledge. We then highlight the challenges inherent in creating assessment items that focus specifically on measuring teachers' specialised knowledge…

Background: High-stakes tests have an immense washback effect on what students learn and affect the content of student learning. However, if students fail to recognize the abilities that the test developers intend to measure, they are less likely to learn what the test developers wish them to learn. This study aims to investigate test-taker…