The needs for precisely estimating a student's academic performance have been emphasized with an increasing amount of attention paid to Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). However, since labels for academic performance, such as test scores, are collected from outside of ITS, obtaining the labels is costly, leading to label-scarcity problem which…

The Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) has synthesized key data on English learners (ELs) into two-page sheets on a variety of subjects. This fact sheet provides the following data on ELs in the United States over the 2017-2018 school year: (1) Percentage of Students Enrolled in K-12 Who Are English Learners; (2) English Language…

This dissertation presents three studies that examined issues related to the production and the perception of pitch in a tone language. The first study examined linguistic contexts that may modulate consonant-induced pitch perturbations (CF0) in a tone language. Previous studies have produced mixed findings regarding the role of linguistic…

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a group of states working together to develop a set of assessments that measure whether students are on track to be successful in college and careers. Administrations of the PARCC assessment included three Prose Constructed Responses (PCR), one per task for English…

The Test of German as a Foreign Language (TestDaF) plays a critical role as a standardized test of German language proficiency. Developed and administered by the Society for Academic Study Preparation and Test Development (g.a.s.t.), TestDaF was launched in 2001 and has experienced persistent annual growth, with more than 44,000 test takers in…

Over the last two decades, there has been significant debate surrounding the potential benefits, or potential harm, generated from the provision of written corrective feedback (WCF) on the writing of language learners. The majority of research in the field has been conducted within a positivist paradigm, which often adopted experimental research…

It is general practice to use rater judgments in speaking proficiency testing. However, it has been shown that raters' knowledge and experience may influence their ratings, both in terms of leniency and varied focus on different aspects of speech. The purpose of this study is to identify raters' relative responsiveness to fluency and linguistic…

Language proficiency tests have become common instruments to judge people based on their performance. Thus, the scores on language proficiency tests, such as the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), play a crucial role in the test-takers' lives. Because of increasing demands on…

Based on the dynamic and emerging nature of language aptitude, the paper reports an empirical study investigating the relationship between multilingual learning experiences and language aptitude through comparative analyses of language aptitude between second language (L2) and third language (L3) learners. Eighty-seven Chinese students who majored…

It is commonly found that deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students experience delayed mathematical achievement. The present study used two nonsymbolic comparison tasks to explore the basic numerical skills of DHH students. Nine prelocutive DHH students with cochlear implants and nine hearing students, matched on nonverbal IQ, visual short-term…

In the past 2 decades, there has been an increasing tendency to use scores from the "TOEFL iBT"® Speaking test for decisions regarding the certification of international graduate students as teaching assistants at North American universities. To obtain validity evidence in support of the usefulness of the speaking scores for this…

Many disadvantaged students with refractive errors, such as myopia (nearsightedness) and hyperopia (farsightedness), do not have eyeglasses, and their reduced vision may impact reading proficiency. Providing eyeglasses may increase their reading success. This article reports the findings of a study in Baltimore City in which disadvantaged second…

Making inferences about a test taker's language ability has been a concern for language testers. Defining language ability in a speaking test is made difficult because the construct involves factors within and beyond the test taker. One underlying factor is the use of strategies. This study probes test takers' strategic processes and their use in…

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a degenerative brain disease and the most common cause of dementia, accounts for an estimated 60 percent to 80 percent of cases. AD has two subtypes: Early-onset and Late-onset Alzheimer's disease. Both types are characterized by a decline in memory, problem-solving and other cognitive skills that affect a person's…

Purpose: The study aims to explore whether finite verbal morphology is affected in children/adolescents with Down syndrome (DS), whether observed deficits in this domain are indicative of a delayed or deviant development, and whether they are due to phonetic/phonological problems or deficits in phonological short-term memory. Method: An…