This study presents the development and empirical validation of score levels and descriptors specifically designed for reporting purposes to provide test takers with more than just a number on a score scale. In the context of a test primarily intended for 11- to 15-year-old students learning English as a second/foreign language, the study examined…

The current study aims to analyze the psychometric qualities of the Persian adapted version of Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) developed by Rebecca L. Oxford (1990). Three instruments were used: Persian adapted version of SILL, a Background Questionnaire, and Test of English as a Foreign Language. Two hundred and thirteen Iranian…

Speaking performance tests typically employ raters to produce scores; accordingly, variability in raters' scoring decisions has important consequences for test reliability and validity. One such source of variability is the rater's level of expertise in scoring. Therefore, it is important to understand how raters' performance is influenced by…

Recently, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) changed by including a writing section that gives the examinee an option between computer and handwritten formats to compose their responses. Unfortunately, this may introduce several potential sources of error that might reduce the reliability and validity of the scores. The seriousness…

This paper reports the results of generalizability theory (G) analyses done for new writing and speaking tasks for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). For writing, a special focus was placed on evaluating the impact on the reliability of the number of raters (or ratings) per essay (one or two) and the number of tasks (one, two, or…

This paper examines the nature of confidence in relation to cognitive abilities, personality traits, and metacognition. Confidence was measured as it was expressed in answers to each test item during the administration of reading and listening sections of the TOEFL® iBT. The confidence scores were correlated with the accuracy scores from the TOEFL…

The e-rater® system has been used by ETS for automated essay scoring since 1999. This paper describes a new version of e-rater (v.2.0) that differs from the previous one (v.1.3) with regard to the feature set and model building approach. The paper describes the new version, compares the new and previous versions in terms of performance, and…