Examines the way in which many high stakes tests have been introduced for reasons of political expediency rather than educational benefit. Discusses the consequences of using tests in this way and suggests that when tests are used as disciplinary tools, their introduction leads to a narrowing of the curriculum rather than an improvement in…

Reports on the development of the Matriculation English Test oral subtest (METOS) in China. Having undergone repeated piloting and moderation, the METOS format has attained validity on the strength of its being a message-based test of the interactive and contextualized use of English. (Author/VWL)

Describes five basic elements that need to be considered with every test: backwash; reliability, administrative concerns; validity; and ethics. These elements are discussed in relation to tests for students who are second language learners of English. (Author/VWL)

Seventeen states in the United States use Spanish-language proficiency tests to ensure that bilingual education teachers are able to deliver academic instruction in Spanish to school-age students. The unified validity of the Four Skills Exam (FSE), used in New Mexico for nearly 18 years, was evaluated using Messick's framework (1989). (Author/VWL)

Investigates the process by which raters of texts written by English-as-a-Second-Language learners make their scoring decisions using an analytic rating scale designed for multiple test forms. Demonstrates that the task raters face is to reconcile their impression of the text, the specific features of the text, and the wordings of the rating…

Investigates agreement among teacher-, self-, and peer-assessments of students in the presence of peer feedback. This is done in the context of oral presentation skills of first year undergraduate students of ethnic Chinese background. Findings how that when assessment criteria are firmly set, peer feedback enables students to judge the…

A nested cross-over design was used to examine the effects of visual condition, type of stimuli, and language proficiency on listening comprehension items of the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Three two-way interactions were significant: proficiency by type of stimuli, type of stimuli by visual condition, and type of stimuli by time.…

Explores the term "applied linguistics" and discusses the role of language testing within this discipline, the relationship between testing and teaching, and the relationship between testing and assessment (Author/VWL)

Describes the Intensive English Language Testing System test, which is used to assess whether nonnative candidates are ready to study or train in the medium of English. (Author/VWL)

A study investigated whether examinees taking the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) attended to the text passages in the "minitalks" when answering the multiple-choice items (n=337) testing listening comprehension. Results support the construct validity of the minitalks, and also allow comparison between reading and listening…

Research on two approaches to assessment of second-language performance--second-language acquisition and language testing--is examined and compared with regard to systematic effects on language tests. Findings incidental to a test development project are then presented. It is concluded that a full account of performance testing requires a paradigm…

In a study of teenage learners of French, the aspect of teachers' language that was found to be most responsive to the ability of their students was lexical diversity. Focuses on this finding using a new measure. (Author/VWL)

Illustrates some of the issues that have arisen in the implementation of outcomes-based systems of assessment and reporting. Two examples from school and adult immigrant education in Australia are provided that demonstrate some of the political and technical problems involved in implementation in both high- and low-stakes contexts. Outlines ways…

This study examined the effectiveness of a transitional Spanish-English bilingual program, Academic Language Acquisition (ALA), in enhancing K-5 students' English-language proficiency, as well as their English performance in academic subject areas, in comparison with the Structured English Immersion (SEI) process. An existing reading program,…

In this article, we describe the development and trial of a bilingual computerized test of vocabulary size, the number of words the learner knows, and strength, a combination of four aspects of knowledge of meaning that are assumed to constitute a hierarchy of difficulty: passive recognition easiest, active recognition, passive recall, and active…