The aim of this report is to present the findings of the 3rd and 4th phases of a longitudinal study into the impact of changes in the TOEFL® exam on teaching in test preparation classrooms. Phase 1 (2003-2004) described the type of teaching taking place in 12 TOEFL preparation classrooms before the introduction of the new TOEFL. Phase 2…

Ninth-grade predictors of dropout risk among Austin Independent School District's English language learner students included the following: having an attendance rate below 90%, being 16 years or older, earning less than 5 course credits, attending a Title I campus and scoring beginning or intermediate on the state's English proficiency assessment…

The study investigates educated Arab's preference for using foreign words in Arabic oral discourse. A corpus of commonly used English/French words was collected. A sample of language and translation students and faculty was tested and surveyed to find out whether they were familiar with the Arabic equivalents to foreign words commonly used,…

Although ubiquitous learning enhances students' access to learning materials, it is crucial to find out which media presentation modes produce the best results for English listening comprehension. The present study examined the effect of media presentation mode (sound and text versus sound) on English listening comprehension and cognitive load.…

Performance pay for teachers is frequently suggested as a way of improving education outcomes in schools, but the theoretical predictions regarding its effectiveness are ambiguous and the empirical evidence to date is limited and mixed. We present results from a randomized evaluation of a teacher incentive program implemented across a large…

The AISD level report highlights analyses results and strategies that address the interactions among factors influencing student performance. The 2008-2009 middle school level report presents results critical to student achievement at the middle school level.

This paper describes and evaluates the Higher-Secondary School Certificate (HSC) exam in Pakistan that has been in place in its present form for more than thirty years. The author recounts her experience as a teacher of English in a representative high school in Pakistan and, reflecting on the impact of high school public exam, she argues that the…

Many young Indigenous Australian students continue to underachieve in Western mathematics. National test results indicate that they are two years behind their peers. Success in mathematics is important to Indigenous students as it leads to employment opportunities and can assist in identifying power differences among socio-economic classes…

Objective: The objective of this study was to chart the developmental trajectories of high-functioning children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) from early childhood to adolescence using the presence and absence of structural language impairment (StrLI) as a way of differentiating autism from Asperger syndrome (AS). Method: Sixty-four…

This study investigates ESL learners' semantic awareness of English words by attempting to estimate a threshold beyond which ESL learners can be said to have reached native-like semantic knowledge. The "Vocabulary Levels Test," originally designed by Nation (1990) and later revised and expanded by Schmitt (2000), was used to operationalise this…

This study examines 75 Chinese EFL learners' test-taking strategies and their relationship with listening performance. It further looks into how students adjust their strategies under four different task conditions. The participants completed a three-phase (before/during/after) test-taking questionnaire and were given a listening test comprising…

Although the United States has had a language requirement for citizenship (through the naturalization process) since the first decade of the 20th century, very little research and discussion has taken place in academic circles about this requirement, which has been enforced for the past two decades through a test and testing practice to which…

This article reports on two related studies carried out to link the State examination of Dutch as a second language to the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR). In the first study, key persons from institutions for higher education were asked to determine the minimally required language level of beginning students. In the…

In researching the potential of cognitive diagnostic assessment, researchers concur that the quality of diagnostic inferences is subject to the extent to which the construct representations based on cognitive skills are theoretically compelling, empirically sound, and relevant to test use. In this paper, I argue that the construction of a Q matrix…

Purpose: To examine the effect of a systematic vocabulary instructional technique in African American 2nd-grade children with below average vocabulary skills. An additional goal was to examine the role of book type in the retention of novel vocabulary words. Method: Using an adapted alternating treatments design, storybooks were used as a source…