Teaching pragmatics is crucial in the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) since it is one of the primary indications of successfully and appropriately communicating in a target language. To our knowledge, there are not many studies on teaching pragmatics and no thoroughly designed measurement tools to investigate the perspectives of…

Studies have shown that raising L2 learners' metaphor awareness contributes to the acquisition of figurative language, which fosters students' development of language skills. However, the instruments measuring metaphor awareness, in the majority of relevant research, did not seem to have undergone proper methodological procedures for checking…

With recent technological advances, researchers have begun to explore the potential use of spoken dialog systems (SDSs) for L2 oral communication assessment. While several studies support the feasibility of building these systems for various types of oral tasks, research on the construct validity of SDS-delivered tasks is still limited. Thus, this…

Recent literature in the field of L2 vocabulary assessment has advocated for the development of written receptive vocabulary tests such as Vocabulary Levels Tests (VLTs) that use: (a) meaning-recall item formats, (b) a minimum of 40 item counts per 1,000-frequency band to improve level estimates, and (c) lemmas (not word-families) as the lexical…

This paper presents the findings of a study that intended to seek the content validity (CV) evidence of an instrument to measure the reading ability of university students in Sri Lanka. The reading passages and items were adapted from CEFR aligned Learning Resource Network (LRN) materials. The items were designed based on the cognitive processing…

International English Language Testing System (IELTS) scores have been widely used as the language entry requirements for international students in many English-medium universities. However, research on the predictive validity of IELTS on subsequent academic performance has been inconclusive. Additionally, despite the proliferation of IELTS…

This study aims to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to determine the attitudes of Arabic teachers toward Arabic language teaching. The population of this study consists of 171 teachers and teacher candidates for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and 202 teachers for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), who teach Arabic in Turkey. The…

Language testing and assessment have grown in popularity and gained significance in the last few decades, and there is a rising need for assessment literate stakeholders in the field of language education. As teachers play a major role in assessing students, there is a need to make sure they have the right level of assessment knowledge and skills…

Chulalongkorn University Language Institute (CULI) test was developed as a local standardised test of English for professional and international communication. To ensure that the CULI test fulfils its intended purposes, this study employed Kane's argument-based validation and Rasch measurement approaches to construct the validity argument for the…

The RP Group's Multiple Measures Assessment Project (MMAP) produced this technical report as part of a series on how California's community colleges can ensure more English learners (ELs) successfully complete "gateway" English coursework -- courses that satisfy the English writing requirements for completion of an associate's degree as…

Existing methods used to validate self-report questionnaires in foreign language teaching effectiveness have relied on Classical Test Theory (CTT). However, the use of CTT approaches limits the reliability and validity of self-report instruments. The Rasch Model, which is based on the principles of objective measurement, addresses some of the…

Teacher support, as an essential type of social support and an important antecedent of many key outcomes in L2 learning, can significantly contribute to foreign language achievement. Although teacher support has received considerable attention in education and educational psychology, it has drawn scanty attention in foreign language and applied…

Teacher agency is a pivotal element of professionalism and second/foreign language (L2) education. However, its role in L2 assessment has remained under-researched. Part of this negligence is due to the absence of a validated questionnaire to measure the construct and its underlying components. To address this gap, drawing on the ecological…

Smartphones and the literacy to harness the educational affordances of photographs currently rest on the bedrock of second language (L2) education. Building on social semiotic theory, this study developed and validated a visual literacy scale for smartphone photography (VLS4SP). Despite the importance of visuals and smartphones, no valid scale is…

Given the increasing emphasis of communicative competence in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts and the lack of validation research on speaking assessments for adolescent EFL learners, in the current study we examined the validity of the TOEFL Junior® speaking test, a relatively new speaking assessment developed by Educational Testing…