This web page lists articles in general applied linguistics and educational research journals that may be related to language testing and assessment, or use language tests as part of their methodology. Over thirty widely used journals are currently scanned for relevant articles. Content of the specialist language testing journals can be found here.

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• SECOND LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT AND MORPHOSYNTACTIC DEVELOPMENT
  Research Articles
  Patti Spinner,
  Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Volume 33 Issue 04, pp 529-561
  
  Abstract
  
  
• PRACTICAL LANGUAGE TESTING. Glenn Fulcher. London: Hodder Education, 2010. Pp. xvi + 352.
  Book Reviews
  April Ginther,
  Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Volume 33 Issue 04, pp 639-639
  
  Abstract
  
  
• L'enseignement d'un vocabulaire disciplinaire dans deux contextes d'immersion universitaire : Quelle approche favoriser?
  Posted on 1 Feb 2012 at 9:56 am
  

  La présente étude vise à vérifier si un enseignement du vocabulaire dans deux contextes d'immersion différents permet une amélioration des connaissances lexicales. Cet article examinera premièreme...

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  La présente étude vise à vérifier si un enseignement du vocabulaire dans deux contextes d'immersion différents permet une amélioration des connaissances lexicales. Cet article examinera premièrement le contexte de notre étude effectuée auprès de 11 étudiants en droit et 13 étudiants en histoire inscrits à l'université d'Ottawa dans un cours d'encadrement linguistique associé à un cours d'immersion. Puis, nous décrirons le protocole utilisé : chaque semaine, pendant une session universitaire, les étudiants ont complété une série d'activités reliées à un vocabulaire disciplinaire provenant de leurs lectures et de leurs cours. Nous présenterons également les résultats des analyses aux différents tests (pré-test, post-test et test différé) pour vérifier l'amélioration des connaissances chez les étudiants et la rétention de ce vocabulaire entre le début et la fin de la session, entre les mots enseignés et les mots non enseignés. Nos résultats permettront ainsi de proposer les meilleures approches pédagogiques dans les deux cours visés, approches qui tiendront compte des caractéristiques spécifiques au vocabulaire de chacune des disciplines.

  Content Type Journal ArticleCategory ArticlesPages 1-27DOI 10.3138/cmlr.68.1.001Authors Alysse WeinbergDalila BoukacemSandra Burger Journal Canadian Modern Language Review/ La Revue canadienne des langues vivantesOnline ISSN 1710-1131Print ISSN 0008-4506 Journal Volume Volume 68 Journal Issue Volume 68, Number 1 / February 2012
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• A cross-sectional study of prosodic sensitivity and reading difficulties
  Posted on 31 Jan 2012 at 11:00 pm
  by Andrew J. Holliman
  
  In this cross-sectional study, we explore the relationship between prosodic sensitivity (suprasegmental phonology) and phonological awareness (segmental phonology) and investigate whether a group o... (show all)
  In this cross-sectional study, we explore the relationship between prosodic sensitivity (suprasegmental phonology) and phonological awareness (segmental phonology) and investigate whether a group of poor readers display significant suprasegmental phonological deficits in comparison to chronological age-matched controls and younger, reading age-matched controls. Phonological awareness assessments were administered along with a battery of prosodic sensitivity assessments drawn from recent literature. The results showed that poor readers were outperformed by their chronological age-matched counterparts on all measures of prosodic sensitivity. A significant main effect of group was found on the revised stress mispronunciations task and the stress assignment task from the prosodic assessment battery, the former of which remained even after controlling for individual differences in receptive vocabulary and measures of phonological awareness. Significant relationships were also found between measures of prosodic sensitivity and phonological awareness (especially phoneme awareness). These findings emphasise the importance of both segmental and suprasegmental phonological skills in children's reading development.
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• Reading paths and visual perception in multimodal research, psychology and brain sciences
  Posted on 31 Jan 2012 at 8:49 pm
  
  Publication year: 2012
  Source: Journal of Pragmatics, Available online 30 January 2012
  Tuomo Hiippala
  This paper argues that the concept of a reading path in multimodal research can be improved by pre... (show all)
  Publication year: 2012
  Source: Journal of Pragmatics, Available online 30 January 2012
  Tuomo Hiippala
  This paper argues that the concept of a reading path in multimodal research can be improved by previous research on visual perception in psychology and brain sciences, and particularly by the work done within eye-tracking studies. The paper argues that in its current state, the concept of a reading path is not sufficiently reliable due to the lack of empirical testing and therefore presents a methodological proposal to improve the current situation.Thus, the paper identifies common areas of interest related to visual perception, where the research interests of the disciplines meet and enable reciprocal input. It is suggested that multimodal research is capable of describing the high-level factors that affect visual perception, whereas eye-tracking equipment can track the actual reader behaviour. Applicable state-of-the-art theories of multimodal analysis are then described, along with the technological requirements for the eye tracker and its software.XML annotation, output and transformations are proposed for combining the results of multimodal analysis and the observer behaviour captured using an eye tracker. Finally, the paper presents a hypothesis on the relationship of visual perception and multimodal semiosis, which may be evaluated using the proposed method combining multimodal analysis and eye-tracking.
  Highlights? The concept of a ?reading path? in multimodal research is contested by research in psychology and brain sciences. ? Multimodal research may describe certain high-level factors of visual perception. ? Methods of multimodal analysis and eye-tracking studies can be interfaced via XML.
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• What about me?: Individual self-assessment by skill and level of language instruction 
  Posted on 30 Jan 2012 at 6:40 pm
  
  Publication year: 2012
  Source: System, Available online 30 January 2012
  Cindy Brantmeier, Robert Vanderplank, Michael Strube
  In an investigation with advanced language learners, Brantmeier [Brantmeier... (show all)
  Publication year: 2012
  Source: System, Available online 30 January 2012
  Cindy Brantmeier, Robert Vanderplank, Michael Strube
  In an investigation with advanced language learners, Brantmeier [Brantmeier, C., 2006. Advanced L2 learners and reading placement: self-assessment, computer based testing, and subsequent performance. System 34 (1), 15?35.] reports that self-assessment (SA) of second language (L2) reading ability, when measured with self-rated scales, is not an accurate predictor of subsequent reading performance as measured via multiple choice items. In another experiment with advanced learners that utilizes criterion-referenced SA items, Brantmeier and Vanderplank [Brantmeier, C., Vanderplank, R., 2008. Descriptive and criterion-referenced self assessment with L2 readers. System 36 (3), 456?477] reveal that learners accurately estimate their reading comprehension when it is measured via multiple choice items. For the present study, an SA instrument of language learning achievement was designed according to specific course content to take into consideration the direct experience learners have had in practicing reading, listening, speaking, and writing [Ross, S., 1998. Self-assessment in second language testing: a meta-analysis of experimental factors. Language Testing 15, 1?20.]. With 276 participants, the study examines skill-based SA across beginning, intermediate and advanced levels of language instruction, and it offers evidence to validate the relationship between the SA instrument and achievement on an online abilities test with advanced learners. Findings hold important implications for language learner assessment, especially in terms of advanced students? ability to rate themselves when given specific criteria. A discussion about the value of SA as a complement to other traditional approaches for language program assessment is offered.
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• Re-Examining Exit Exams: New Findings from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002
  Posted on 29 Jan 2012 at 6:00 pm
  by Catherine Shuster
  
  Using the nationally representative, cohort-based data of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:02), this study employs multiple regression to examine the effects of exit exams on student a... (show all)
  Using the nationally representative, cohort-based data of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:02), this study employs multiple regression to examine the effects of exit exams on student achievement and school completion. This study finds that exit exams as a whole do not have substantial effects on student achievement in mathematics, twelfth grade GPA, or school completion. Standards-based exams are a positive predictor of dropping out of school but lose their predictive power once GED recipients are coded as completing school. Exit exams do not affect GED seeking and acquisition. When exit exams are disaggregated by type and students are sorted by ninth grade GPA quartiles, end-of-course exams have some negative effects on mathematics test score gains. Students in the bottom two quartiles see reduced test score gains of 28% and 29% of a grade level equivalency (GLE). These effects disappear when students in North Carolina are coded as taking a different type of exam. Standards-based exams had a small positive effect, about 37% of a GLE, on the top quartile of students. Overall, the findings showed no results for school completion and mixed results for test score gains. The article concludes that policymakers looking to boost high school achievement would be better served by working to boost student accomplishments before high school. Normal.dotm 0 0 1 214 1224 cmc 10 2 1503 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false
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• Note-taking quality and performance on an L2 academic listening test
  Posted on 25 Jan 2012 at 6:17 pm
  by Song, M.-Y.
  

  This study investigated the relationships among the quality of L2 test takers’ notes evaluated in terms of different levels of information and test takers’ performance on open-ended listening tasks...

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  This study investigated the relationships among the quality of L2 test takers’ notes evaluated in terms of different levels of information and test takers’ performance on open-ended listening tasks tapping into different comprehension subskills. In addition, this study examined the invariance of the structural relationships among the variables across two different note-taking formats, that is, a blank format and an outline format, by employing a multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. The results indicated that note quality measures, in particular the number of topical ideas found in the notes and the organization of these notes, may be good indicators of test takers’ second language academic listening proficiency. It was also found that despite the invariance of structural relationships among variables across the two note-taking formats, the associations between the open-ended listening measures and note quality measures were slightly stronger in the outline format than in the blank format. The implications of these results for L2 academic listening assessment are considered.

  
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• Grounding the argument-based framework for validating score interpretations and uses
  Posted on 25 Jan 2012 at 6:17 pm
  by Oller, J. W.
  

  Kane’s argument-based framework is summarized and examined. He implicitly appeals to the backgrounded concepts of fairness and justice. From there it is a short distance to grounding the whole syst...

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  Kane’s argument-based framework is summarized and examined. He implicitly appeals to the backgrounded concepts of fairness and justice. From there it is a short distance to grounding the whole system in the mundane notion of truth. In fact, valid argument systems must depend on representations that are ‘true’ by virtue of agreement with purported facts. As a friendly amendment, therefore, I argue that (provided the ceteris paribus, all else being equal, requirement is met) agreement with known facts in testing, experimental research, and scientific measurement counts for a great deal more than disagreement. It follows by Peircean ‘exact logic’ that higher test scores (if the tests have any validity at all) are invariably more informative (interpretable in general) and thus more useful than lower scores. Why? Because higher scores show more agreement between the test-makers and the higher scoring test-takers about whatever facts (or performances) may be at issue. Exceptions are cases where the ceteris paribus requirement is not met. Necessary (but testable) inferences follow for interpretations and uses of ‘cutscores.’

  
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• Re-fitting for a different purpose: A case study of item writer practices in adapting source texts for a test of academic reading
  Posted on 25 Jan 2012 at 6:17 pm
  by Green, A., Hawkey, R.
  

  The important yet under-researched role of item writers in the selection and adaptation of texts for high-stakes reading tests is investigated through a case study involving a group of trained item...

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  The important yet under-researched role of item writers in the selection and adaptation of texts for high-stakes reading tests is investigated through a case study involving a group of trained item writers working on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). In the first phase of the study, participants were invited to reflect in writing, and then audio-recorded in a semantic-differential-based joint discussion, on the processes they employed to generate test material. The group were next observed at a simulated item writers’ editing meeting to refine their texts and items for an IELTS reading test module. The participants’ written descriptions and recorded discussions provided rich data on how source texts were perceived, selected and adapted for the Test. The study reports findings from textual analyses using indices of readability and lexical density from the original material sourced by the item writers and their adapted versions for the test. Results from qualitative and quantitive analyses are discussed in terms of the implications for the IELTS reading module of editing actions such as: reducing redundancy and technical language, changing styles, deciding on potentially sensitive issues and relationships between texts and test items. The important issue of text authenticity in tests such as IELTS is also broached.

  
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• Validity argument for language assessment: The framework is simple...
  Posted on 25 Jan 2012 at 6:17 pm
  by Chapelle, C. A.
  
  
• Differential Item Functioning in While-Listening Performance Tests: The Case of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Listening Module
  Posted on 17 Jan 2012 at 9:57 am
  International Journal of Listening, Volume 26, Issue 1, Page 40-60, January-April 2012.
  
  
  
• Evaluating the effectiveness of explicit instruction on implicit and explicit L2 knowledge
  Posted on 12 Jan 2012 at 7:05 am
  by Akakura, M.
  

  This study examined the effectiveness of explicit instruction on second language (L2) learners’ implicit and explicit knowledge of English. Explicit instruction on the generic and non-generic use o...

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  This study examined the effectiveness of explicit instruction on second language (L2) learners’ implicit and explicit knowledge of English. Explicit instruction on the generic and non-generic use of English articles was delivered by CALL activities. Four tasks assessed acquisition: elicited imitation, oral production, grammaticality judgement, and metalinguistic knowledge tasks. A pretest and two posttests were conducted immediately and six weeks after the treatment. Durable effects for explicit instruction were found on measures of implicit knowledge and on ungrammatically supplied items on measures of explicit knowledge. This study’s findings contribute towards our understanding of the efficacy of explicit instruction on implicit and explicit knowledge at relatively advanced stages of L2 acquisition.

  
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• Working Memory and the Observed Effectiveness of Recasts on Different L2 Outcome Measures
  Posted on 9 Jan 2012 at 9:06 pm
  by Andrea Révész
  
  This study examined whether the observed effectiveness of recasts is influenced by the type of outcome measure used and whether different aspects of working memory are differentially associated wit... (show all)
  This study examined whether the observed effectiveness of recasts is influenced by the type of outcome measure used and whether different aspects of working memory are differentially associated with learners? performance on the various outcome measures. The participants were 90 learners of English as a foreign language, who were randomly assigned to a recast, a nonrecast, and a control group. A pretest?posttest?delayed posttest design was employed to detect any improvement in the learners? knowledge of one usage of the English past progressive construction. Many-facet Rasch measurement and correlational analyses yielded two main findings. First, recasts generated the greatest gains on an oral production test, lesser gains on a written production test, and the least gains on a written grammaticality judgment test. Second, in the recast group, participants with higher reading spans achieved more development on the written tests, while those with higher digit and nonword spans showed greater improvement on the oral test. For the nonrecast group, no association was found between the working memory and developmental measures.
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• The 'promise' of three methods of word association analysis to L2 lexical research
  Posted on 3 Jan 2012 at 8:54 am
  by Zareva, A., Wolter, B.
  

  The present study is an attempt to empirically test and compare the results of three methods of word association (WA) analysis. Two of the methods – namely, associative commonality and nativelikene...

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  The present study is an attempt to empirically test and compare the results of three methods of word association (WA) analysis. Two of the methods – namely, associative commonality and nativelikeness, and lexico-syntactic patterns of associative organization – have been traditionally used in both first language (L1) and second language (L2) associative research and the third one – collocational aspect of associative responses – is a more recent perspective on associative connections. The central assumption behind the study is that each method captures a different aspect of language users’ lexical organization and, in that, their findings may paint a different picture of how the L1 and L2 lexicons compare as proficiency increases. At the same time, the sensitivity of each method to reflect differences related to proficiency may also point to their potential as a research and assessment tool.

  Three equal size groups of participants (N = 180) at different proficiency levels – native speakers (NSs), second language (L2) advanced and intermediate learners of English – completed a familiarity and a WA test in writing. The tests contained 36 items equated for lexical class (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) and frequency of occurrence (high, mid, and low). The participants’ WAs generated to familiar vocabulary were analysed in three different ways, following the methods of analysis practiced by each of the three traditions under investigation. In the main, the results showed that examining the lexico-syntactic patterns of associative organization as well as the collocational aspect of associative links are two more ‘promising’ ways of looking at WAs than examining them with respect to their nativelike associative commonality.

  
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• Using systemic functional linguistics in academic writing development: An example from film studies
  Posted on 31 Dec 2011 at 4:00 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Available online 31 December 2011
  James Donohue
  On film studies courses, students are asked to treat as objects of study the sa... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Available online 31 December 2011
  James Donohue
  On film studies courses, students are asked to treat as objects of study the same films which they may more commonly experience as entertainment. To explore the role of academic writing in this, an action research project was carried out on a university film studies course using a systemic functional linguistics approach. This paper presents a key assessment essay genre, referred to as ataxonomic film analysis. This genre was analysed drawing on the work ofHalliday and Mathiessen (2004), Martin (1992)and Lemke (1993), focussing on three aspects: the genre acts performed in the process of analysing film; the conceptual frameworks of film studies knowledge, or ?thematic formations? (Lemke, 1985, 1990) drawn on and re-constituted in the assignment; the particular ways that language is used to perform these acts and build these thematic formations. For EAP to be relevant to film students, it is proposed that EAP specialists need to engage with these three aspects of film study. This application of SFL in film studies EAP is intended as an illustration of how SFL tools can be used for relevant EAP provision across the HE curriculum.
  Highlights? The key genre identified was taxonomic film analysis. ? Deploying film studies language and genre converts film into an object of study. ? EAP lecturers need to engage with both the language and the meaning making of film students.
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• A Bifactor Multidimensional Item Response Theory Model for Differential Item Functioning Analysis on Testlet-Based Items
  Posted on 29 Dec 2011 at 5:22 pm
  by Fukuhara, H., Kamata, A.
  

  A differential item functioning (DIF) detection method for testlet-based data was proposed and evaluated in this study. The proposed DIF model is an extension of a bifactor multidimensional item re...

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  A differential item functioning (DIF) detection method for testlet-based data was proposed and evaluated in this study. The proposed DIF model is an extension of a bifactor multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) model for testlets. Unlike traditional item response theory (IRT) DIF models, the proposed model takes testlet effects into account, thus estimating DIF magnitude appropriately when a test is composed of testlets. A fully Bayesian estimation method was adopted for parameter estimation. The recovery of parameters was evaluated for the proposed DIF model. Simulation results revealed that the proposed bifactor MIRT DIF model produced better estimates of DIF magnitude and higher DIF detection rates than the traditional IRT DIF model for all simulation conditions. A real data analysis was also conducted by applying the proposed DIF model to a statewide reading assessment data set.

  
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• Have the educational reforms worked in Latin America? A case study of Argentina, Brazil and Chile
  Posted on 25 Dec 2011 at 6:00 pm
  by Cristian G Perez Centeno, Mariana Leal
  
  Almost ten years after the political closing of the neoliberal cycle that framed educational reforms in Latin America in the 90s, this paper assesses their success in three countries ? Argentina, B... (show all)
  Almost ten years after the political closing of the neoliberal cycle that framed educational reforms in Latin America in the 90s, this paper assesses their success in three countries ? Argentina, Brazil and Chile. The analysis is supported by the theoretical framework developed by Martin Carnoy in his text ?Are educational reforms working in Latin America? New perspectives? (2002) and spin-off texts, as an alternative model to classical analysis of educational reforms and quality assurance of its various educational systems. As regards methodology, several indicators, weighted by Carnoy for consideration of success of Latin American reforms, will be used to analyze educational systems of Argentina, Brazil and Chile: (a) expansion of system access, (b) performance of the most disadvantaged intake and (c) improvement of factors associated to educational achievement. Data focus, mainly, on secondary school education since it is at this stage that the greatest difficulty is encountered. Primary education coverage is practically universal and diminishes rapidly when secondary education is considered.  In its analysis, this study compares not only the impact of reforms within and across the countries mentioned above but also on Carnoy?s proposal for analysis and traditional models of reform assessment (basically, through the study of changes in effectiveness ?learning results- and internal efficiency of systems ? repeat students and drop-outs). Finally, this paper raises questions about the true capacity for improvement that reform processes have had for the population of those countries ?specially for Argentina- not just in educational terms but also with respect to its democratization and, considering the Conference theme: decrease in vulnerability, injustice and inequity.
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• Basic education teachers in Brazil in one possible reading of educational policies
  Posted on 19 Dec 2011 at 6:00 pm
  by Angelo Ricardo Souza, Andréa Barbosa Gouveia
  

  This article presents a reading of educational policies which have impact and/or relate to teachers? work. Using data from Basic Education Assessment System (SAEB) and Brazilian National Education ...

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  This article presents a reading of educational policies which have impact and/or relate to teachers? work. Using data from Basic Education Assessment System (SAEB) and Brazilian National Education Census, this work builds a personal, professional and training profile of basic public education teachers in Brazil, and compares this profile with the demands for jobs in basic education and with the current national educational policies, so as to consider the challenges for public education in the country.

  
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• A Triangulated Study of Academic Language Needs of Iranian Students of Computer Engineering: Are the Courses on Track?
  Posted on 14 Dec 2011 at 10:11 am
  by Atai, M. R., Shoja, L.
  

  Even though English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) courses constitute a significant part of the Iranian university curriculum, curriculum developers have generally developed the programs bas...

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  Even though English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) courses constitute a significant part of the Iranian university curriculum, curriculum developers have generally developed the programs based on intuition. This study assessed the present and target situation academic language needs of undergraduate students of computer engineering. To this end, data were elicited from 231 undergraduates, 30 graduate students, 20 computer engineering instructors and 15 ESP instructors at three major Iranian universities. Instrumentation included needs analysis and self-assessment questionnaires, a general English proficiency test, semi-structured interviews, and non-participant observations. Despite some inconsistencies in participants’ perceptions of target situation needs, the findings indicate that written skills and language components are important. The undergraduates perceived difficulties with some sub-skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Moreover, General English Proficiency (GEP) level of the students, as probed by a GEP test and confirmed by self assessment results and teacher assessment data, was generally low. The undergraduates held that they need more general English than highly specific academic English. Finally, participants commented on several major problematic areas. The findings may promise implications for renewing the ESAP course under study and suggest a model framework for needs assessment to other EASP researchers worldwide.

  
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• Identifying Problematic Segmental Features to Acquire Comprehensible Pronunciation in EFL Settings: The Case of Japanese Learners of English
  Posted on 14 Dec 2011 at 10:11 am
  by Saito, K.
  

  The present study examines how to identify problematic pronunciation features for particular EFL learners, namely native Japanese speakers (NJs) learning English, to acquire comprehensible pronunci...

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  The present study examines how to identify problematic pronunciation features for particular EFL learners, namely native Japanese speakers (NJs) learning English, to acquire comprehensible pronunciation, and tests the appropriateness of the selection. The study comprises two phases. In the identification phase, eight English-specific segmentals, /æ, f, v, , ð, w, l, /, were selected as the most problematic for NJs by drawing on various cross-linguistic analyses (i.e. a remedial approach) as well as a survey in which the advice of 48 experienced NJ English teachers was examined (i.e. an expert judgment approach). In the experimental phase, the relative influence of these sounds on comprehensibility and accentedness was analyzed. Twenty NJ participants read two types of sentences: sentences containing eight English-specific segmentals and sentences without them. Four native English speakers (NEs) subsequently rated all speech stimuli on a rubric of accentedness and comprehensibility. Significant differences were found between NEs’ ratings of the two types of sentences both in the domain of comprehensibility and accentedness. The results indicate that the eight segmentals determine NEs’ speech perception to a great degree, which in turn provides some support for the validity of the identification procedure (i.e. the combination of the remedial and expert judgment approaches).

  
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• Goal Setting and Student Achievement: A Longitudinal Study
  Posted on 5 Dec 2011 at 12:48 pm
  by ALEIDINE J. MOELLER
  
  The connection between goals and student motivation has been widely investigated in the research literature, but the relationship of goal setting and student achievement at the classroom level has ... (show all)
  The connection between goals and student motivation has been widely investigated in the research literature, but the relationship of goal setting and student achievement at the classroom level has remained largely unexplored. This article reports the findings of a 5-year quasi-experimental study examining goal setting and student achievement in the high school Spanish language classroom. The implementation of LinguaFolio, a portfolio that focuses on student self-assessment, goal setting, and collection of evidence of language achievement, was introduced into 23 high schools with a total of 1,273 students. By using a hierarchical linear model, researchers were able to analyze the relationship between goal setting and student achievement across time at both the individual student and teacher levels. A correlational analysis of the goal-setting process and language proficiency scores reveals a statistically significant relationship between the goal-setting process and language achievement (p < .01).
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• The Roles of Structured Input Activities in Processing Instruction and the Kinds of Knowledge They Promote
  Posted on 30 Nov 2011 at 11:00 pm
  by Emma Marsden
  
  This study aimed to isolate the effects of the two input activities in Processing Instruction: referential activities, which force learners to focus on a form and its meaning, and affective activit... (show all)
  This study aimed to isolate the effects of the two input activities in Processing Instruction: referential activities, which force learners to focus on a form and its meaning, and affective activities, which contain exemplars of the target form and require learners to process sentence meaning. One hundred and twenty 12-year-old Taiwanese learners of English as a foreign language were assigned to one of four groups: Referential + Affective, Referential only, Affective only, or Control. The treatments were computer-based. Pretests, posttests, and delayed posttests, including a timed grammaticality judgment, a written gap-fill, an oral picture narration, and a short semistructured conversation, measured learning of the??ed?past tense verb inflection. Findings suggested that referential activities were responsible for the learning gains observed, that affective activities did not provide additional benefits in terms of learning??ed, and that the gains observed displayed some broadly defined characteristics of explicit knowledge.
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• Learning a Tonal Language by Attending to the Tone: An In Vivo Experiment
  Posted on 30 Nov 2011 at 11:00 pm
  by Ying Liu
  
  Learning the Chinese tone system is a major challenge to students of Chinese as a second or foreign language. Part of the problem is that the spoken Chinese syllable presents a complex perceptual i... (show all)
  Learning the Chinese tone system is a major challenge to students of Chinese as a second or foreign language. Part of the problem is that the spoken Chinese syllable presents a complex perceptual input that overlaps tone with segments. This complexity can be addressed through directing attention to the critical features of a component (tone in this case) within a complex perceptual input stimulus. We tested hypotheses based on this feature-focusing assumption in an in vivo classroom setting. First-year students in a Chinese language program at a U.S. university were trained to identify the tones of 228 syllables learned across eight lessons in the first semester. Three learning conditions were designed to support tone learning by presenting (a) visual pitch contours that depict the acoustic shape of the tones, together with pinyin spelling of the spoken syllables (Contour + Pinyin condition); (b) numbers that represent the tones in traditional computer interface, together with pinyin spelling of the spoken syllables (Number + Pinyin condition); and (c) visual pitch contours without pinyin spelling (Contour Only condition). Analyses of student activity logs (learning curves) and pretests and posttests showed significant effects of learning condition. The results suggested that the Contour + Pinyin condition had more error reduction in tone recognition over the activity log than the Contour Only condition and greater improvement from the pretest to posttest than the Number + Pinyin condition. These findings point at the value of separate support for the two major components (tone and segments) of a tonal language.
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• Shared Orthography: Do Shared Written Symbols Influence the Perception of L2 Sounds?
  Posted on 30 Nov 2011 at 11:00 pm
  by CAROLYN PYTLYK
  
  This research investigates whether English speakers who learn Mandarin Chinese via a familiar orthography differ from those who learn via a non-familiar orthography in their perception of English?M... (show all)
  This research investigates whether English speakers who learn Mandarin Chinese via a familiar orthography differ from those who learn via a non-familiar orthography in their perception of English?Mandarin sound pairs. Canadian English speakers (n= 32) participated in a series of experimental tasks. The tasks included pre- and posttest perception tests and language classes where the participants learned Mandarin through 1 of 3 means: Pinyin, the familiar orthography; Zhuyin, the non-familiar orthography; or no orthography. The results indicate that the 3 learning groups exhibited similar perceptual performances. These results are discussed in terms of the strength of the established first language (L1) orthographic system, the cognitive load, and the length of time required for the development of new symbol?sound associations. The data suggest that Mandarin instruction via Zhuyin does not appear to have an advantage over instruction via Pinyin, as conflict between 2 orthographic systems appears to neutralize any potential benefits. This is the first systematic study to investigate the potential influence of the L1 orthographic code on second language speech perception.
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• Implicit and Explicit Knowledge in Second Language Learning, Testing and Teaching edited by ELLIS, ROD, SHAWN LOEWEN, CATHERINE ELDER, ROSEMARY ERLAM, JENEFER PHILP, & HAYO REINDERS
  Posted on 30 Nov 2011 at 11:00 pm
  by TERESA SATTERFIELD
  
  
• Practical Language Testing by FULCHER, GLENN
  Posted on 30 Nov 2011 at 11:00 pm
  by FRANK NUESSEL
  
  
• Decoding Ability in French as a Foreign Language and Language Learning Motivation
  Posted on 30 Nov 2011 at 11:00 pm
  by LYNN ERLER
  
  This study examined the relationships between decoding ability (the ability to relate graphemes to phonemes) in French as a foreign language, self-reported use of such decoding, and dimensions of m... (show all)
  This study examined the relationships between decoding ability (the ability to relate graphemes to phonemes) in French as a foreign language, self-reported use of such decoding, and dimensions of motivation, specifically self-efficacy and attribution, among young-beginner learners in England. It investigated whether these factors were related to a desire to continue studying the language beyond the compulsory learning age of 14. Previous research has found low levels of motivation for learning the language after only a few years of instruction and a number of authors have called for research to discover why this should be. With a large stratified sample of participants aged 11?14, decoding ability was elicited via written rhyme and word segmentation tests. Self-efficacy, attribution, perceptions of learning French and use of decoding were elicited via self-reported statements. Findings suggest that, after 3 years of studying French, students were unable to decode accurately even though they claimed to use decoding regularly in a range of language learning tasks. At all stages of learning, students? ability to decode, together with their belief that they could do it, appeared to contribute to the likelihood of their continuing with French study. They attributed inability to decode not to the teacher or teaching method but to the ?strangeness? of French. Given the potential generalizability of these results, important implications for teaching and for curriculum review are drawn.
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• The effects of pragmatic consciousness-raising activity on the development of pragmatic awareness and use of hearsay evidential markers for learners of Japanese as a foreign language
  Posted on 26 Nov 2011 at 7:19 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Journal of Pragmatics, Available online 25 November 2011
  Ritsuko Narita
  This study investigates the effects of pragmatic consciousness-raising (PCR) activities in the ac... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Journal of Pragmatics, Available online 25 November 2011
  Ritsuko Narita
  This study investigates the effects of pragmatic consciousness-raising (PCR) activities in the acquisition of pragmatic competence, focusing on hearsay evidential markers such asrashii?I heard that? in Japanese. PCR is an inductive approach to facilitating awareness of how language forms are used appropriately in a given context.has proposed in his noticing hypothesis that L2 learners must first demonstrate a conscious awareness of some particular form in the input before any subsequent processing or intake of that noticed form can take place. This study explores the question of whether awareness is necessary for L2 pragmatic learning.A quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test/delayed post-test format was adopted. Forty-one learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) were divided into two groups: the PCR treatment group and the control group. The tests consisted of metapragmatic knowledge tests and an oral discourse production test. In total, four treatment sessions were given to the PCR group just before the post-tests.This study showed that the PCR group performs better than the control group on both the immediate post-tests and the delayed post-tests. Through the PCR activities, JFL learners may become aware of critical differences between L1 and L2, and enhance their L2 pragmatic competence successfully.
  Highlights? The pragmatic consciousness-raising activity is effective for L2 pragmatics acquisition. ? There are no significant differences between levels of awareness (i.e. noticing and understanding) in pragmatics acquisition. ? The JFL learners showed interest in the pragmatic consciousness-raising activities with metalinguistic discussion.
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• Differential Item Functioning Analysis of the Science and Mathematics Items in the University Entrance Examinations in Turkey
  Posted on 17 Nov 2011 at 2:44 am
  by Kalaycioglu, D. B., Berberoglu, G.
  

  This study is aimed to detect differential item functioning (DIF) items across gender groups, analyze item content for the possible sources of DIF, and eventually investigate the effect of DIF item...

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  This study is aimed to detect differential item functioning (DIF) items across gender groups, analyze item content for the possible sources of DIF, and eventually investigate the effect of DIF items on the criterion-related validity of the test scores in the quantitative section of the university entrance examination (UEE) in Turkey. The reason for DIF items in the UEE basically comes from subject matter related factors, cognitive skills measured, and item format characteristics. It seems that higher order cognitive skills and figural or graphical representations used in item content are the two sources of DIF for favoring male students, whereas routine algorithmic calculations could produce DIF against males. Among the factors considered, cognitive skills assessed by items seem the most effective factor in producing gender DIF. However, DIF items do not create a threat to the criterion-related validity of the quantitative section of the UEE. Consideration of the DIF items and gender differences as presented here serves to underscore the need to consider gender differences in item selection on any measure that is used for a similar purpose.

  
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• Teachers' Assessment of Physical Aggression With the Preschool Behavior Questionnaire: A Multitrait-Multimethod Evaluation of Convergent and Discriminant Validity
  Posted on 17 Nov 2011 at 2:44 am
  by Spilt, J. L., Koomen, H. M. Y., Stoel, R. D., Thijs, J. T., van der Leij, A.
  

  The distinctiveness of physical aggression from other antisocial behavior is widely accepted but little research has explicitly focused on young children to empirically test this assumption. A Mult...

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  The distinctiveness of physical aggression from other antisocial behavior is widely accepted but little research has explicitly focused on young children to empirically test this assumption. A Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix (MTMM) approach was employed to confirm the distinctiveness of physical aggression from nonaggressive antisocial behavior in early childhood. In addition, the convergent validity of teacher reports of physical aggression was investigated on a measure that contained age-appropriate behavior items selected from the Preschool Behavior Questionnaire (PBQ). Assessments of physical aggression versus nonaggressive antisocial behavior of 117 kindergartners with different behavior profiles were obtained using three measures varying in source and/or method: (a) teacher reports on the PBQ, (b) short interviews with teachers, and (c) classroom observations. The MTMM matrix was analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results provided reasonable support for the discrimination between physical aggression and nonaggressive antisocial behavior. In addition, strong support was found for the convergent validity of teacher-reported physical aggression using PBQ items.

  
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• A Cross-Cultural Assessment of School Connectedness: Testing Measurement Invariance With United States and Chilean Adolescents
  Posted on 17 Nov 2011 at 2:44 am
  by Sass, D. A., Castro-Villarreal, F., McWhirter, B. T., Hawley McWhirter, E., Karcher, M. J.
  

  Positive associations between measures of school or academic connectedness and behavioral and academic outcomes suggest that connectedess is an important protective factor for adolescents in the Un...

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  Positive associations between measures of school or academic connectedness and behavioral and academic outcomes suggest that connectedess is an important protective factor for adolescents in the United States. However, little is known about the meaning or measurement of academic connectedness, outside the United States, and especially in South America where rapid economic and educational changes are underway. Using the Hemingway: Measure of Adolescent Connectedness measurement invariance analyses were conducted that compared Chilean and United States samples. Results revealed that although all scales reflected factorial validity in both cultures, the connectedness to school, teachers, and self-in-the-future factors were noninvariant across groups, whereas the factors of connectedness to peers and self-in-the-present were invariant across groups. Consequently, all of these subscales can be used in both contexts, but comparing United States and Chilean youth on three subscales may be ill advised.

  
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• Raising reading achievement in an ?at risk?, low socioeconomic, multicultural intermediate school
  Posted on 15 Nov 2011 at 9:08 am
  by Jo Fletcher
  
  This article focuses on a multicultural, low socioeconomic, intermediate school that over the 4 years of this longitudinal, qualitative, case study made substantial positive shifts in developing a ... (show all)
  This article focuses on a multicultural, low socioeconomic, intermediate school that over the 4 years of this longitudinal, qualitative, case study made substantial positive shifts in developing a more effective learning environment and improving students' reading achievement. The study found that the factors appearing to have the most influence on this improvement were: effective and collaborative school leadership; ongoing school-wide professional development on teaching reading led by an externally appointed literacy expert; the appointment, within the school, of a literacy leader charged with supporting this development; assessment data being used to inform teaching and a school-wide action plan directed at literacy improvement; the implementation of reading programmes that were regular, focused and sustained; the school leadership proactively ensuring school-wide support for management of appropriate student behaviour; the fostering of home?school partnerships; and ongoing external reviews of school effectiveness.
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• Very early language skills of fifth-grade poor comprehenders
  Posted on 15 Nov 2011 at 9:08 am
  by Laura Justice
  
  This study tested the theory that future poor comprehenders would show modest but pervasive deficits in both language comprehension and production during early childhood as compared with future poo... (show all)
  This study tested the theory that future poor comprehenders would show modest but pervasive deficits in both language comprehension and production during early childhood as compared with future poor decoders and typical readers. Using an existing database (NICHD ECCRN), fifth-grade students were identified as having poor comprehension skills (n=16), poor decoding skills (n=11) or typical reading skills (n=35) based on standardised assessments of word recognition and reading comprehension. Language comprehension and production during the toddler and preschool years were retrospectively compared across these subgroups. Compared with future typical readers and poor decoders, poor comprehenders had the lowest abilities on language assessments at 15, 24, 36 and 54 months. For nearly all contrasts, the difference between poor comprehenders and the other groups of readers exceeded .5 standard deviation in magnitude, indicating that the early language skills of poor comprehenders exhibit appreciable lags.
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• Phonetically rich and balanced text and speech corpora for Arabic language
  Posted on 4 Nov 2011 at 11:54 am
  

  Abstract  This paper describes the preparation, recording, analyzing, and evaluation of a new speech corpus for Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The speech corpus contains a total of 415 sentences re...

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  Abstract  This paper describes the preparation, recording, analyzing, and evaluation of a new speech corpus for Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The speech corpus contains a total of 415 sentences recorded by 40 (20 male and 20 female) Arabic native speakers from 11 different Arab countries representing three major regions (Levant, Gulf, and Africa). Three hundred and sixty seven sentences are considered as phonetically rich and balanced, which are used for training Arabic Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems. The rich characteristic is in the sense that it must contain all phonemes of Arabic language, whereas the balanced characteristic is in the sense that it must preserve the phonetic distribution of Arabic language. The remaining 48 sentences are created for testing purposes, which are mostly foreign to the training sentences and there are hardly any similarities in words. In order to evaluate the speech corpus, Arabic ASR systems were developed using the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Sphinx 3 tools at both training and testing/decoding levels. The speech engine uses 3-emitting state Hidden Markov Models (HMM) for tri-phone based acoustic models. Based on experimental analysis of about 8 h of training speech data, the acoustic model is best using continuous observation?s probability model of 16 Gaussian mixture distributions and the state distributions were tied to 500 senones. The language model contains uni-grams, bi-grams, and tri-grams. For same speakers with different sentences, Arabic ASR systems obtained average Word Error Rate (WER) of 9.70%. For different speakers with same sentences, Arabic ASR systems obtained average WER of 4.58%, whereas for different speakers with different sentences, Arabic ASR systems obtained average WER of 12.39%.

  Content Type Journal ArticleCategory Original PaperPages 1-34DOI 10.1007/s10579-011-9166-8Authors Mohammad A. M. Abushariah, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaRaja N. Ainon, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaRoziati Zainuddin, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaMoustafa Elshafei, Department of Systems Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, KFUPM Box 405, Dhahran, 31261 Saudi ArabiaOthman O. Khalifa, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, International Islamic University Malaysia, 53100 Gombak, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Journal Language Resources and EvaluationOnline ISSN 1574-0218Print ISSN 1574-020X
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• Quantifying the "Degree of Linguistic Demand" in Spoken Intelligence Test Directions
  Posted on 2 Nov 2011 at 5:13 am
  by Cormier, D. C., McGrew, K. S., Evans, J. J.
  

  The linguistic demand of spoken instructions on individually administered norm-referenced psychological and educational tests is of concern when examining individuals who have varying levels of lan...

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  The linguistic demand of spoken instructions on individually administered norm-referenced psychological and educational tests is of concern when examining individuals who have varying levels of language processing ability or varying cultural backgrounds. The authors present a new method for analyzing the level of verbosity, complexity, and total demand of spoken directions for individually administered test batteries. This preliminary methodological investigation suggests it is possible, and relatively easy, to gather useful empirical information regarding the complexity of spoken test directions using existing (readily available) text readability programs. It is suggested that best practice for individually administered psychological and educational tests may benefit from including this information when tests are published and/or compared.

  
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• Is linguistic ability variation in paired oral language testing problematic?
  Posted on 20 Oct 2011 at 11:35 pm
  by Bennett, R.
  

  This study looks at the real and perceived effects of inter-candidate variation in linguistic ability during pair-tested oral examinations in a southern Italian context. Pair testing has not been t...

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  This study looks at the real and perceived effects of inter-candidate variation in linguistic ability during pair-tested oral examinations in a southern Italian context. Pair testing has not been taken up in schools and universities in southern Italy despite its wide use in international testing systems. Colleagues and prospective candidates often report to teachers their belief that test results can be adversely or positively affected by candidate pairing. To investigate the existence and validity of these beliefs, a series of tests was devised consisting of paired oral tests and pre- and post-test questionnaires. It was found that while the great majority of candidates believed that their test scores could be, and in many cases had been, affected by their candidate pairing, no evidence came to light to support these beliefs. In fact the linguistic ability of a candidate’s partner appeared to have little or no effect on his or her performance.

  
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• Book Review: Language assessment in practice: Developing language assessments and justifying their use in the real world
  Posted on 19 Oct 2011 at 5:21 am
  by Kane, M.
  
  
• Effects of test-taker characteristics and the number of participants in group oral tests
  Posted on 19 Oct 2011 at 5:21 am
  by Nakatsuhara, F.
  

  This study explores the nature of co-constructed interaction in group oral tests by examining whether a test-taker’s own and his or her group members’ extraversion levels and oral proficiency level...

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  This study explores the nature of co-constructed interaction in group oral tests by examining whether a test-taker’s own and his or her group members’ extraversion levels and oral proficiency levels have different influences on conversational styles between two group sizes: groups of three and groups of four. Data were collected from 269 Japanese upper-secondary school students, who took group oral tests either in groups of three or four. All sessions were video-taped and transcribed following Conversation Analysis (CA) conventions. The data were quantitatively analysed in terms of goal-orientation, interactional contingency and quantitative dominance. Then, CA methodology was used to interpret and elaborate the statistical results. The findings have implications for our understanding of the group oral test construct and for appropriate choices of group size in group oral testing.

  
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• Diagnosing EAP writing ability using the Reduced Reparameterized Unified Model
  Posted on 19 Oct 2011 at 5:21 am
  by Kim, Y.-H.
  

  Despite the increasing interest in and need for test information for use in instructional practice and student learning, there have been few attempts to systematically link a diagnostic approach to...

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  Despite the increasing interest in and need for test information for use in instructional practice and student learning, there have been few attempts to systematically link a diagnostic approach to English for academic purposes (EAP) writing instruction and assessment. In response to this need for research, this study examined the extent to which the diagnostic information generated by the Reduced Reparameterized Unified Model (Reduced RUM; Hartz, Roussos, & Stout, 2002) was a discriminant, accurate, and reliable method of determining student performance in EAP writing. Ten English as a second language (ESL) teachers assessed 480 Test of English as a Foreign Language™ Internet-based test (TOEFL® iBT ) independent essays using the Empirically-derived Descriptor-based Diagnostic (EDD) checklist, which consisted of 35 concrete, fine-grained descriptors. The resultant ratings were then analyzed using Arpeggio, the estimation software of the Reduced RUM. The findings showed that the skills diagnosis approach not only classified skill masters and non-masters accurately and reliably, but that it also had high discriminant function, with only a small number of students classified into flat profiles. However, concerns were raised with regard to the diagnostic power of some descriptors and the stability of one writing skill parameter (i.e., mechanics). The theoretical and pedagogical implications of the use of diagnostic assessment in EAP writing are discussed in this paper, as are suggestions for future research in applying psychometric diagnostic assessment models to performance assessment.

  
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• Building out a measurement model to incorporate complexities of testing in the language domain
  Posted on 19 Oct 2011 at 5:21 am
  by Wilson, M., Moore, S.
  

  This paper provides a summary of a novel and integrated way to think about the item response models (most often used in measurement applications in social science areas such as psychology, educatio...

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  This paper provides a summary of a novel and integrated way to think about the item response models (most often used in measurement applications in social science areas such as psychology, education, and especially testing of various kinds) from the viewpoint of the statistical theory of generalized linear and nonlinear mixed models. In addition, this new approach emphasizes how item response models can be coordinated and broadened to emphasize their explanatory uses beyond their standard descriptive uses. The basic explanatory principle is that item responses can be modeled as a function of qualities and features of various measurement contexts. These qualities and features can be: (a) characteristics of (i) items, (ii) persons, and (iii) combinations of items and persons; (b) observed or latent (of either items or persons); and (c) continuous or categorical. These ideas are exemplified in the context of a reading comprehension test. The paper starts with an introduction to the framework and then provides: (a) a description of the data that will be used to illustrate the new framework; (b) a discussion of data structure; (c) a brief description of the statistical approach we used; (d) a discussion of how the framework helps one to conceptualize existing item response models, linking the formal features of the models to substantive issues in the assessment of reading comprehension, as well as incorporating an example that goes beyond the usual range of item response models; and (e) a brief summary of further expansion.

  
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• The development and maintenance of rating quality in performance writing assessment: A longitudinal study of new and experienced raters
  Posted on 19 Oct 2011 at 5:21 am
  by Lim, G. S.
  

  Raters are central to writing performance assessment, and rater development – training, experience, and expertise – involves a temporal dimension. However, few studies have examined new and experie...

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  Raters are central to writing performance assessment, and rater development – training, experience, and expertise – involves a temporal dimension. However, few studies have examined new and experienced raters’ rating performance longitudinally over multiple time points. This study uses operational data from the writing section of the MELAB (n = 20,662 ratings), an international exam of English proficiency, to investigate the rating quality of new and experienced raters over three time periods of 12 to 21 months. Rating quality was operationalized in terms of rater severity and consistency, and estimates of those modeled using multi-facet Rasch methodology. Results indicate that, within one particular rating context, (1) novice raters, where initially differing in performance, learn to rate appropriately relatively quickly, (2) raters are able to maintain rating quality over time, and (3) rating volume and rating quality may be related. Implications for rater preparation, rater certification, and the notion of expert rater are discussed.

  
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• Testing of second language pragmatics: Past and future
  Posted on 19 Oct 2011 at 5:21 am
  by Roever, C.
  

  Testing of second language pragmatic competence is an underexplored but growing area of second language assessment. Tests have focused on assessing learners’ sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic abi...

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  Testing of second language pragmatic competence is an underexplored but growing area of second language assessment. Tests have focused on assessing learners’ sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic abilities but the speech act framework informing most current productive testing instruments in interlanguage pragmatics has been criticized for under-representing the construct. In particular, the assessment of learners’ ability to produce extended monologic and dialogic discourse is a missing component in existing assessments. This paper reviews existing tests and argues for a discursive re-orientation of pragmatics tests. Suggestions for tasks and scoring approaches to assess discursive abilities while maintaining practicality are provided, and the problematicity of native speaker benchmarking is discussed.

  
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• Revisiting the theory of territory of information: How first-year university Chinese students handled first-hand and second-hand information
  Posted on 12 Oct 2011 at 3:59 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Journal of Pragmatics, Available online 11 October 2011
  Jian Tao Lü, Xiao Hua Ke, Xue Dan Zheng
  This article presents an investigation into the theory of territory of in... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Journal of Pragmatics, Available online 11 October 2011
  Jian Tao Lü, Xiao Hua Ke, Xue Dan Zheng
  This article presents an investigation into the theory of territory of information in Chinese. As early as 1994, Kamio proposed a pragmatic theory of territory of information. Kamio claims that the theory is valid not only for Japanese but also for English. The locus of this theory is the notion of territory, which is familiar from studies of animal behavior. In the present study, a questionnaire was used to inquire into subjects? understanding of first-hand and second-hand information. In addition, twelve Written Discourse Completion Tasks (WDCTs), which represent a method for inter-language pragmatic assessment in the area of language testing, were used (Brown, 2001; Liu, 2006). The subjects in this study were sixty first-year students who were pursuing two different non-English majors at a university in Mainland China. The data show that, although the notion of territory in terms of first-hand and second-hand information was acquired by the students to a certain extent, some of the forms they used in handling these two types of information are distinct from those used in English as Kamio specifies. The present study posits that the theory of territory of information is valid in Chinese; however, some modifications must be made to Kamio's formulation of the theory regarding the patterns of occurrence of psychological utterances and the conditions for assessing the directness of information.
  Highlights? This paper investigates the theory of territory of information in Chinese. ? The students acquired the notion of territory to a certain extent. ? Some of the forms the students used are distinct from those used in English. ? The study posits that the theory of territory of information is valid in Chinese. ? Some modifications must be made to Kamio's formulation of the theory.
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• Organizing Research and Development at the Intersection of Learning, Implementation, and Design
  Posted on 11 Oct 2011 at 10:55 am
  by Penuel, W. R., Fishman, B. J., Haugan Cheng, B., Sabelli, N.
  

  This article describes elements of an approach to research and development called design-based implementation research. The approach represents an expansion of design research, which typically focu...

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  This article describes elements of an approach to research and development called design-based implementation research. The approach represents an expansion of design research, which typically focuses on classrooms, to include development and testing of innovations that foster alignment and coordination of supports for improving teaching and learning. As in policy research, implementation is a key focus of theoretical development and analysis. What distinguishes this approach from both traditional design research and policy research is the presence of four key elements: (a) a focus on persistent problems of practice from multiple stakeholders’ perspectives; (b) a commitment to iterative, collaborative design; (c) a concern with developing theory related to both classroom learning and implementation through systematic inquiry; and (d) a concern with developing capacity for sustaining change in systems.

  
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• catR: An R Package for Computerized Adaptive Testing
  Posted on 7 Oct 2011 at 4:33 pm
  by Magis, D., Raiche, G.
  

  Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) is an active current research field in psychometrics and educational measurement. However, there is very little software available to handle such adaptive tasks....

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  Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) is an active current research field in psychometrics and educational measurement. However, there is very little software available to handle such adaptive tasks. The R package catR was developed to perform adaptive testing with as much flexibility as possible, in an attempt to provide a developmental and testing platform to the interested user. Several item-selection rules and ability estimators are implemented. The item bank can be provided by the user or randomly generated from parent distributions of item parameters. Three stopping rules are available. The output can be graphically displayed.

  
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• Second language idiom learning: The effects of lexical knowledge and pedagogical sequencing
  Posted on 14 Sep 2011 at 10:54 am
  by Zyzik, E.
  

  This article examines the acquisition of Spanish idioms in a classroom setting that was supplemented with explicit instruction over a 10-week period. The research design manipulated two variables: ...

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  This article examines the acquisition of Spanish idioms in a classroom setting that was supplemented with explicit instruction over a 10-week period. The research design manipulated two variables: prior lexical knowledge and idiom organization. Sixty-five second language (L2) learners completed pre- and posttests that measured their ability to recognize and produce the target idioms, as well as a vocabulary test to control for lexical knowledge. Participants in the experimental groups received contextualized idiom presentation that encouraged noticing, retrieving, and generating (Nation, 2001). The results indicate significant treatment effects, although no significant advantage was found for the thematic grouping of idioms. The results also show a significant effect for prior lexical knowledge on one of the dependent variables. These findings are discussed in relation to prior studies of idiom learning from a cognitive linguistics perspective (Boers et al., 2007) as well as psycholinguistic studies that emphasize the salience of literal meanings (Cieslicka, 2006).

  
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• Nested contexts that shape assessmentforlearning: School-based professional learning community and classroom culture
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 35-48
  Menucha Birenbaum, Helena Kimron, Hany Shilton
  The study investigated the relationships be... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 35-48
  Menucha Birenbaum, Helena Kimron, Hany Shilton
  The study investigated the relationships between assessment for learning (AfL) and attributes of two school-related contexts ? the classroom assessment culture (CAC) in which AfL is embedded, and the larger context in which CAC is nested, namely the school-based professional learning community (SBPLC). The research design comprised two layers ? quantitative and qualitative; the former, using rating-response questionnaires, investigated the association between attributes of SBPLC and AfL in a sample of in-service teachers. The latter, a multiple case study, examined AfL practices of six elementary school teachers, the assessment culture in their classrooms, and characteristics of their SBPLCs. Taken together, the findings of both layers pointed to meaningful relationships among AfL, CAC, and SBPLC highlighting similarities between SBPLC and CAC with regard to cultural attributes and to AfL/inquiry practice. Contextual attribute patterns conducive to proper implementation of AfL and those that impede it were discerned and discussed.
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• Informal formative assessment: The role of instructional dialogues in assessing students? learning
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 15-24
  Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo
  This paper focuses on an unceremonious type of formative assessme... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 15-24
  Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo
  This paper focuses on an unceremonious type of formative assessment ?informal formative assessment? in which much of what teachers and students do in the classroom can be described as potential assessments that can provide evidence about the students? level of understanding. More specifically, the paper focuses on assessment conversations, or dialogic interactions or exchanges, which continuously happen in the classroom and that are at the center of informal formative assessment. It is argued that assessment conversations make students? thinking explicit in an unobtrusive manner, and when students? thinking is explicit, it can be examined, questioned, and shaped as an active object of constructive learning. The paper conceptualizes informal formative assessment at the center of effective instructional activities with the use of instructional dialogues as assessment conversations, a typical informal formative assessment practice. The paper then presents a discussion about the evidence on the effect of assessment conversations on student learning.
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• What is assessment for learning?
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 3-14
  Dylan Wiliam
  The idea that assessment is intrinsic to effective instruction is traced from ... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 3-14
  Dylan Wiliam
  The idea that assessment is intrinsic to effective instruction is traced from early experiments in the individualization of learning through the work of Benjamin Bloom to reviews of the impact of feedback on learners in classrooms. While many of these reviews detailed the adverse impact of assessment on learning, they also indicated that under certain conditions assessment had considerable potential to enhance learning. It is shown that understanding the impact that assessment has on learning requires a broader focus than the feedback intervention itself, particularly the learner's responses to the feedback, and the learning milieu in which the feedback operates. Different definitions of the terms ?formative assessment? and ?assessment for learning? are discussed, and subsumed within a broad definition that focuses on the extent to which instructional decisions are supported by evidence. The paper concludes by exploring some of the consequences of this definition for classroom practice.
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• Video portfolios: The development and usefulness of a teacher assessment procedure 
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Available online 8 May 2011
  Mirjam E.J. Bakker, Erik C. Roelofs, Douwe Beijaard, Piet F. Sanders, Dineke E.H. Tigelaar, ...
  This study... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Available online 8 May 2011
  Mirjam E.J. Bakker, Erik C. Roelofs, Douwe Beijaard, Piet F. Sanders, Dineke E.H. Tigelaar, ...
  This study reports on the development and usefulness of an assessment procedure for teachers? coaching competence. We examined the usefulness of the developed procedure with respect to making reliable judgments. Video portfolios were constructed by researchers, which consisted of deliberately planned video recordings of teachers? coaching performance in the classroom and additional data sources providing context information. Six trained assessors scored three video portfolios. Interrater agreement was determined and assessors were interviewed. Judgments across assessors were relatively similar. Both supportive and hindering aspects in the procedure for making reliable judgments could be derived from the interviews. Theoretical insights about assessor scoring are discussed, and implications for optimizing the assessment procedure are described.
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• How do Dutch secondary teachers and students conceive the purpose of assessment?
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 49-54
  Mien Segers, Harm Tillema
  How teachers and students deal with assessment practices is larg... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 49-54
  Mien Segers, Harm Tillema
  How teachers and students deal with assessment practices is largely influenced by the conceptions they hold about the purpose of assessment. This means that, given the current plea for a paradigm shift from AssessmentofLearning to AssessmentforLeaning with a balance between the formative and summative purposes of assessment, the study of teachers? and students? conceptions of the purpose of assessment is of the utmost relevance. In this study Dutch secondary school teachers? (n = 351) and students? (n = 712) conceptions of the purpose of assessment were measured using a translation of the teachers? conceptions of assessment questionnaire and a translated and shortened version of the students? conceptions of assessment questionnaire. Maximum Likelihood factor analyses resulted in four teacher and five student conceptions of the purpose of assessment. The results indicate that the teachers in our sample did not distinguish between formative and summative purposes of assessment. They did discern classroom assessment (formative as well as summative) from school accountability. In addition, they conceive assessment as being of bad (in terms of measurement errors) or good quality. In contrast with the teachers, students do make a distinction between the formative and summative purpose of assessment. They also refer to school accountability and the affects that assessment triggers in them as further purposes of assessment.
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• Development and validation of an admission test designed to assess samples of performance on academic tasks
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2009
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 35, Issue 4, December 2009, Pages 168-173
  Jenny Tanilon, Mien Segers, Paul Vedder, Harm Tillema
  This study illustrates the deve... (show all)
  Publication year: 2009
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 35, Issue 4, December 2009, Pages 168-173
  Jenny Tanilon, Mien Segers, Paul Vedder, Harm Tillema
  This study illustrates the development and validation of an admission test, labeled as Performance Samples on Academic Tasks in Educational Sciences (PSAT-Ed), designed to assess samples of performance on academic tasks characteristic of those that would eventually be encountered by examinees in an Educational Sciences program. The test was based on one of Doyle's (1983) categories of academic tasks, namely comprehension tasks. There were 108 examinees who completed the test consisting of nine comprehension tasks. Factor analysis indicated that the test is basically unidimensional. Furthermore, generalizability analysis indicated adequate reliability of the pass/fail decisions. Regression analysis then showed that the test significantly predicted later academic performance. The implications of using performance assessments such as PSAT-Ed in admission procedures are discussed.
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• Professional development of teachers?A prerequisite for AfL to be successfully implemented in the classroom
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 55-61
  Kari Smith
  A prerequisite for AfL to be successfully implemented in the classroom is the t... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 55-61
  Kari Smith
  A prerequisite for AfL to be successfully implemented in the classroom is the teachers? assessment practice. In many contexts, including the Norwegian, AfL has not been successfully dealt with during initial teacher education, and there is a need for qualified teachers to engage in professional development in AfL.This article first discusses different perspectives of professional development, not all of which lead to change of attitudes and beliefs resulting in changed practice. Difficulties in implementing AfL beyond the individual teacher and reach the full teaching staff is presented through experiences from a Norwegian research and development project. The next project to be briefly discussed focuses on engaging teachers in developing their own criteria for good classroom assessment.Finally the paper proposes that a major obstacle to teachers? professional development in AfL is the competence of teacher educators in AfL. Do those who are to guide and support professional development in schools hold the essential knowledge and competence themselves?The conclusive argument is that for AfL to be common assessment practice in schools there is a need for development processes at various levels of the education system.
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• Assessment for learning in the accountability era: New Zealand
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 71-77
  Terry Crooks
  The requirements for valid assessment for learning and assessment of learning... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 71-77
  Terry Crooks
  The requirements for valid assessment for learning and assessment of learning are reviewed and then the tensions between these two purposes of assessment are explored, first in general and then within two areas of the New Zealand education system. First, the nature of assessment for learning in primary schools is discussed and how it is, or might be, affected by four accountability pressures associated with assessment of learning. The second area is assessment for qualifications in the final years of secondary education. Here, some of the assessment of learning occurs at local level, within schools, and the remainder occurs at national level. These two assessment pathways create substantially different conditions affecting assessment for learning.
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• Cycles of inquiry: Formative assessment in service of learning in classrooms and in school-based professional communities
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2009
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 35, Issue 4, December 2009, Pages 130-149
  Menucha Birenbaum, Helena Kimron, Hany Shilton, Rinat Shahaf-Barzilay
  The paper repor... (show all)
  Publication year: 2009
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 35, Issue 4, December 2009, Pages 130-149
  Menucha Birenbaum, Helena Kimron, Hany Shilton, Rinat Shahaf-Barzilay
  The paper reports results of three studies that used a formative assessment (FA) framework to compare schools that vary in their level of functioning as professional learning communities with respect to three processes: classroom assessment (study 1), development and implementation of school-based curriculum (study 2), and pedagogical conversations at teachers? lounge professional meetings (study 3). When performed at their best, these three are inquiry processes that follow the phases of formative assessment cycles. Results supported the conclusion that school-based professional learning communities (SBPLC) make a difference in terms of FA practices enacted at both classroom and organizational levels. Moreover, classroom culture seems to mirror the organizational culture, where attributes considered as enhancing FA practice are clearly more noticeable in the high SBPLC group than in the low one.
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• Assessment for learning in the accountability era: Queensland, Australia
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 78-83
  Val Klenowski
  Developments in school education in Australia over the past decade have witn... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 78-83
  Val Klenowski
  Developments in school education in Australia over the past decade have witnessed the rise of national efforts to reform curriculum, assessment and reporting. Constitutionally the power to decide on curriculum matters still resides with the States. Higher stakes in assessment, brought about by national testing and international comparative analyses of student achievement data, have challenged State efforts to maintain the emphasis on assessment to promote learning while fulfilling accountability demands. In this article lessons from the Queensland experience indicate that it is important to build teachers? assessment capacity and their assessment literacy for the promotion of student learning. It is argued that teacher assessment can be a source of dependable results through moderation practice. The Queensland Studies Authority has recognised and supported the development of teacher assessment and moderation practice in the context of standards-driven, national reform. Recent research findings explain how the focus on learning can be maintained by avoiding an over-interpretation of test results in terms of innate ability and limitations and by encouraging teachers to adopt more tailored diagnosis of assessment data to address equity through a focus on achievement for all. Such efforts are challenged as political pressures related to the Australian government's implementation of national testing and national partnership funding arrangements tied to the performance of students at or below minimum standards become increasingly apparent.
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• Alternative assessment in higher education: An experience in descriptive statistics
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2010
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 36, Issues 1-2, March-June 2010, Pages 62-68
  Zipora Libman
  Assessment-led reform is now one of the most widely favored strategi... (show all)
  Publication year: 2010
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 36, Issues 1-2, March-June 2010, Pages 62-68
  Zipora Libman
  Assessment-led reform is now one of the most widely favored strategies to promote higher standards of teaching, more powerful learning and more credible forms of public accountability. Within this context of change, higher education in many countries is increasingly subjected to demands to implement alternative assessment strategies that provide outcome measures of both student and program effectiveness. This article examines a process of integrating real-life data investigation in a course on descriptive statistics at a teachers college. The article describes this process and considers implications of this experience in terms of its potential to improve the quality of learning and assessment of knowledge in descriptive statistics in higher education.
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• Assessing the Practicum in teacher education ? Do we want candidates and mentors to agree?
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2010
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 36, Issues 1-2, March-June 2010, Pages 36-41
  Kari Smith
  One of the most important components of teacher education is the practi... (show all)
  Publication year: 2010
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 36, Issues 1-2, March-June 2010, Pages 36-41
  Kari Smith
  One of the most important components of teacher education is the practical part, the Practicum, and assessment of the candidates? performance plays a major part in forming the future generation of teachers. Little is known about the extent of agreement between the two main actors in the Practicum, the candidates and the school-based teacher educators. The aim of this paper is to add information about a rather blurred area of assessment in teacher education. The findings indicate there is a considerably extent of disagreement about assessment in the Practicum between the mentors and the candidates. It is suggested that instead of seeing the disagreements merely as obstacles to valid assessment, they can be exploited to initiate professional learning for the candidates.
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• Assessment for learning in the accountability era: Empirical evidence from Scotland
  Posted on 12 Sep 2011 at 1:29 pm
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 62-70
  Carolyn Hutchinson, Myra Young
  In many European languages, the words ?assessment? and ?eva... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: Studies In Educational Evaluation, Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 62-70
  Carolyn Hutchinson, Myra Young
  In many European languages, the words ?assessment? and ?evaluation? are synonymous, but in English the two terms are used differently. Educational ?assessment? is learner-focused and part of professional pedagogy, relating directly to the accountability of practitioners and schools to learners and their families. Educational ?evaluation? is understood to be a parallel and linked process, relating to the quality of national policy and of provision and practice in establishments, part of accountability to the wider public. In Scotland, assessment policy has been focused on aligning ?assessment for learning? and ?assessment for accountability? for nearly a decade and policy guidance has been based on the principle that formative and summative uses of information can apply as well to system evaluation as to school-based assessment. Self-evaluation has been increasingly emphasized, promoting better understanding of the role of continuous review in supporting and improving education. In theory, the two processes of assessment and evaluation should align without difficulty as ?intelligent accountability? and together should act as a powerful driver for improved educational outcomes. However, achieving alignment in practice, which requires good professional relationships and mutual trust in different communities of practice, as well as shared understanding and expectations, has proven to be very hard to achieve. This article will show the progress that has been made with alignment; indicate where there have been difficulties and why; and suggest that several important factors need to be acknowledged if alignment is to be achieved.
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• The influence of learner strategies on oral presentations: A comparison between group and individual performance
  Posted on 11 Sep 2011 at 4:49 am
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: English for Specific Purposes, Volume 30, Issue 4, October 2011, Pages 272-285
  Mu-hsuan Chou
  Cooperative learning has frequently been used in language classrooms, from i... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: English for Specific Purposes, Volume 30, Issue 4, October 2011, Pages 272-285
  Mu-hsuan Chou
  Cooperative learning has frequently been used in language classrooms, from in-class task-based group work to group presentations. Research suggests that cooperative learning provides mutual support, as well as successful and effective learning outcomes of tasks. The present research addressed a number of problems discovered in group oral presentations in an EAP context where cooperative learning is the core of the course. As learning is strongly related to strategies or approaches adopted to facilitate one?s comprehension and production of the target language, the purposes of the present study were to investigate the use and influence of learner strategies in cooperative and individual learning, and the benefits of cooperative learning in improving students? English speaking ability.Fifty-two, third-year French major college students taking the Professional English Course at a college in Taiwan participated in the study. All participants were required to give oral presentations on the topics taught in class. Research methods included questionnaires, interviews, and oral assessments. The findings showed that, first, certain learner strategies had positive impacts on the students? language performance in the two types of presentation and second, that group oral presentation had the greatest influence on improving students? speaking ability, while other forms of cooperative learning activities enhanced their motivation for learning.
  Highlights? The participants deployed metacognitive, retrieval, and rehearsal strategies more frequently in individual than group presentations. ? Communicative strategies were used more often in group presentations. ? Learner strategies had positive impacts on students? fluency in group presentations, but on organization in individual presentations. ? Cooperative activity involving in-class discussion was considered motivating, while it with oral presentations was regarded as beneficial to increase of speaking ability. ? The participants preferred individual presentations to groups for developing independent thinking, improving organizational skills and English ability.
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• A corpus-based approach to online materials development for writing research articles
  Posted on 11 Sep 2011 at 4:49 am
  
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: English for Specific Purposes, Volume 30, Issue 3, July 2011, Pages 222-234
  Ching-Fen Chang, Chih-Hua Kuo
  There has been increasing interest in the possible applications... (show all)
  Publication year: 2011
  Source: English for Specific Purposes, Volume 30, Issue 3, July 2011, Pages 222-234
  Ching-Fen Chang, Chih-Hua Kuo
  There has been increasing interest in the possible applications of corpora to both linguistic research and pedagogy. This study takes a corpus-based, genre-analytic approach to discipline-specific materials development. Combining corpus analysis with genre analysis makes it possible to develop teaching materials that are not only authentic but also research-supported. An RA corpus consisting of 60 research articles from three major journals of computer science was constructed. A word frequency list derived from the corpus was analyzed to develop a vocabulary profile for the genre. Move analysis was also conducted based on a self-developed coding scheme of rhetorical moves in the target genre. The move codes were tagged in the corpus texts so that individual moves and move patterns could be retrieved for the purpose of developing research-based online teaching materials for graduate students of computer science. Numerous examples of specialized vocabulary, grammatical usage, and move structures that showcase and characterize academic computer science discourse were used in not only lessons but also learning tasks, discussion topics, and online writing models. The paper ends with a discussion of the usefulness and effectiveness of the online RA writing materials, based on student feedback and assessments.
  Highlights? We combine corpus-based with genre-analytic approach to develop research-based online courseware for graduate students of computer science. ? We build a corpus of 60 research articles. ? We analyze word frequency and rhetorical moves in each section from the corpus. ? The online courseware includes examples of specialized vocabulary, grammatical usages, move structures, and learning tasks. ? The usefulness and effectiveness of the online courseware are evaluated by student feedback and assessments.
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• A genre-based approach to teaching EFL summary writing
  Posted on 7 Sep 2011 at 9:51 pm
  by Chen, Y.-S., Su, S.-W.
  

  This study utilizes a pre-test/post-test assessment to investigate the instructional efficacy of a genre-based approach to teaching summary writing. Forty-one EFL university students in Taiwan were...

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  This study utilizes a pre-test/post-test assessment to investigate the instructional efficacy of a genre-based approach to teaching summary writing. Forty-one EFL university students in Taiwan were asked before and after the instruction to summarize a simplified version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in a maximum of 500 words. All the students’ summaries on the pre- and post-tests were evaluated against content, organization, vocabulary, and language use. The statistical results showed that such an approach was effective in improving students’ overall summarization performance of a narrative source text and that the students benefited to a greater extent in content and organization than in vocabulary and language use. The results were also supported by the students’ interview comments.

  
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• Annotating abstract anaphora
  Posted on 3 Sep 2011 at 1:39 am
  

  Abstract  In this paper, we present first results from annotating abstract (discourse-deictic) anaphora in German. Our annotation guidelines provide linguistic tests for identifying the antecedent...

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  Abstract  In this paper, we present first results from annotating abstract (discourse-deictic) anaphora in German. Our annotation guidelines provide linguistic tests for identifying the antecedent, and for determining the semantic types of both the antecedent and the anaphor. The corpus consists of selected speaker turns from the Europarl corpus. To date, 100 texts have been annotated according to these guidelines. The annotations show that anaphoric personal and demonstrative pronouns differ with respect to the distance to their antecedents. A semantic analysis reveals that, contrary to suggestions put forward in the literature, referents of anaphors do not tend to be more abstract than the referents of their antecedents.

  Content Type Journal ArticleCategory Original PaperPages 1-16DOI 10.1007/s10579-011-9160-1Authors Stefanie Dipper, Institute of Linguistics, Ruhr-University Bochum, 44780 Bochum, GermanyHeike Zinsmeister, Institute of Linguistics, Konstanz University, 78457 Konstanz, Germany Journal Language Resources and EvaluationOnline ISSN 1574-0218Print ISSN 1574-020X
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• Curriculum Differentiation and Comprehensive School Reform: Challenges in Providing Educational Opportunity
  Posted on 21 Aug 2011 at 10:57 pm
  by Harris, D. M.
  

  Given the efforts of comprehensive school reform to improve the quality of educational opportunities for students by providing a standards based curriculum, this analysis examines the issue of trac...

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  Given the efforts of comprehensive school reform to improve the quality of educational opportunities for students by providing a standards based curriculum, this analysis examines the issue of tracking and its implications regarding curriculum differentiation. Using data from middle schools involved with the comprehensive school reform model, America’s Choice, this mixed method analysis shows a complex manifestation of curriculum differentiation where schools had multiple types of academic tracks that responded to students differences including comprehensive learning groups, subject-specific groups, and temporary learning groups used for test preparation. Although school-level reports indicated that most regular education and gifted students were exposed to the America’s Choice English Language Arts and mathematics units, special education students and English Language learners were least likely to gain access to this content. Individual teacher responses to tracking were idiosyncratic where some modified the curriculum and instructional pace by learning group ultimately impacting the amount of content exposure where those in the top learning groups were able to cover greater material than those in lower groups. Even though some teachers resisted tracking by addressing the classroom issues that caused differences in curriculum and instruction, tracking persisted as an entrenched practice in these middle schools through preexisting academic groups and were also replicated in new learning groups that emerged to address student academic needs related to state testing demands.

  
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• Methodological Measurement Fruitfulness of Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM): New Approaches to Key Substantive Issues in Motivation and Engagement
  Posted on 10 Aug 2011 at 2:10 am
  by Marsh, H. W., Liem, G. A. D., Martin, A. J., Morin, A. J. S., Nagengast, B.
  

  The most popular measures of multidimensional constructs typically fail to meet standards of good measurement: goodness of fit, measurement invariance, lack of differential item functioning, and we...

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  The most popular measures of multidimensional constructs typically fail to meet standards of good measurement: goodness of fit, measurement invariance, lack of differential item functioning, and well-differentiated factors that are not so highly correlated as to detract from their discriminant validity. Part of the problem, the authors argue, is undue reliance on overly restrictive independent cluster models of confirmatory factor analysis (ICM-CFA) in which each item loads on one, and only one, factor. Here the authors demonstrate exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), an integration of the best aspects of CFA and traditional exploratory factor analyses (EFA). On the basis of responses to the 11-factor Motivation and Engagement Scale (n = 7,420, M age = 14.22), we demonstrate that ESEM fits the data much better and results in substantially more differentiated (less correlated) factors than corresponding CFA models. Guided by a 13-model taxonomy of ESEM full-measurement (mean structure) invariance, the authors then demonstrate invariance of factor loadings, item intercepts, item uniquenesses, and factor variancescovariances, across gender and over time. ESEM has broad applicability to other areas of research that cannot be appropriately addressed with either traditional EFA or CFA and should become a standard tool for use in psychometric tests of psychological assessment instruments.

  
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• What's the DIF? Why Differential Item Functioning Analyses Are an Important Part of Instrument Development and Validation
  Posted on 10 Aug 2011 at 2:10 am
  by Walker, C. M.
  

  The purpose of this manuscript was to help researchers better understand the causes and implications of differential item functioning (DIF), as well as the importance of testing for DIF in the proc...

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  The purpose of this manuscript was to help researchers better understand the causes and implications of differential item functioning (DIF), as well as the importance of testing for DIF in the process of test development and validation. The underlying theoretical reason for the presence of DIF is explicated, followed by a discussion of how to test for the presence of DIF using logistic regression and DIFPACK, which includes SIBTEST, PSIBTEST and Crossing SIBTEST. This manuscript stresses the importance of conducting DIF analyses using a priori hypotheses whenever possible. However, the example that is provided, to show researchers and practitioners how to conduct a DIF analysis, utilizes an exploratory DIF analyses paradigm which may often be needed in practical DIF applications. This example uses PSIBTEST to test for DIF, using data from an international assessment that includes a mixture of polytomous and dichotomous items. In addition to demonstrating how to test for DIF, this manuscript demonstrates how researchers and practitioners should interpret the results of such an analysis. Finally, implications for both practitioners and researchers are provided.

  
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• Modeling Individual Differences in Numerical Reasoning Speed as a Random Effect of Response Time Limits
  Posted on 3 Aug 2011 at 5:59 pm
  by Semmes, R., Davison, M. L., Close, C.
  

  If numerical reasoning items are administered under time limits, will two dimensions be required to account for the responses, a numerical ability dimension and a speed dimension? A total of 182 co...

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  If numerical reasoning items are administered under time limits, will two dimensions be required to account for the responses, a numerical ability dimension and a speed dimension? A total of 182 college students answered 74 numerical reasoning items. Every item was taken with and without time limits by half the students. Three psychometric models were fit to the data—one including no time-limit effect, one including a fixed time-limit effect, and one including a random effect of time limits. The latter model best fit the data, suggesting that a speed dimension, the random effect of time limits, is needed to account for time-limited responses. The estimated reliability of the Speed scores was .39. Despite this low reliability, Speed scores were correlated with American College Testing (ACT) math scores and response times. Speed scores added significantly to the ACT math score variance accounted for by the numerical reasoning dimension in the model. A within-person log-odds ratio interpretation of the Speed score is proposed. Possible methods of improving Speed score reliability and methods for studying the speed dimension are discussed.

  
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• Oral translation as a test accommodation for ELLs
  Posted on 27 Jul 2011 at 5:41 am
  by Stansfield, C. W.
  

  The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (US Government, 2001), the current iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, makes it clear that states, districts, schools and teachers a...

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  The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (US Government, 2001), the current iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, makes it clear that states, districts, schools and teachers are accountable for the education of English language learners (ELLs), as well as all other students. To implement an accountability system, NCLB requires states to create content standards (a set of curricular goals and objectives) for English language arts, mathematics, and science. They must also develop and administer assessments that measure student progress toward mastery of these content standards. Finally, states, districts, and schools must demonstrate that they are making adequate yearly progress toward bringing all students to a previously established level of mastery of these standards (called Proficient) with the goal that by the year 2014 all students will achieve this level.

  
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• Do current English language development/proficiency standards reflect the English needed for success in school?
  Posted on 27 Jul 2011 at 5:41 am
  by Bailey, A. L., Huang, B. H.
  

  English language development or proficiency (ELD/P) standards promise to play an important role in the instruction and assessment of the language development of English language learner (ELL) pre-K...

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  English language development or proficiency (ELD/P) standards promise to play an important role in the instruction and assessment of the language development of English language learner (ELL) pre-K-12 students, but to do so effectively they must convey the progression of student language learning in authentic school contexts for authentic academic purposes. The construct of academic English is defined as the vocabulary, sentence structures, and discourse associated with language used to teach academic content as well as the language used to navigate the school setting more generally. The construct definition is informed by a relatively modest number of empirical studies of textbooks, content assessments, and observations of classroom discourse. The standards of a state with a large ELL population and a large multi-state consortium are then reviewed to illustrate the role of the academic English construct in the standards’ coverage of language modalities or domains, levels of attainment or proficiency, grade spans, and the needs of the large number of young English learners. Recommendations and potential strategies for validating, creating, and augmenting standards that reflect authentic uses of academic language in school settings are also made.

  
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• Issues in vertical scaling of a K-12 English language proficiency test
  Posted on 27 Jul 2011 at 5:41 am
  by Kenyon, D. M., MacGregor, D., Li, D., Cook, H. G.
  

  One of the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act is that states show adequate yearly progress in their English language learners’ (ELLs) acquisition of English language proficiency. States are r...

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  One of the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act is that states show adequate yearly progress in their English language learners’ (ELLs) acquisition of English language proficiency. States are required to assess ELLs’ English language proficiency annually in four language domains (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) to measure their progress; they are also required to report on a composite comprehension measure. Often the clearest way to effectively monitor students’ progress is to measure assessment results across grades on the same scale. In measurement terms, scores from tests across all grade levels can be put on the same scale using vertical scaling. In addition, to help stakeholders understand and interpret the results, these scale scores are often interpreted in terms of proficiency levels. In this article, we use the vertical scaling of WIDA ACCESS for ELLs®, a large-scale K-12 Academic English Language Proficiency assessment to illustrate measurement and practical issues involved in this technique. We first give background on the need for vertical scaling. We then assess the literature on vertical scaling and describe the procedures used for WIDA ACCESS for ELLs® to vertically scale test scores and interpret the results in terms of the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs® Proficiency Scale. Next we review several studies that have been conducted to gauge the effectiveness of that scaling. We end the paper with a discussion of the broad issues that arise from vertical scaling.

  
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• Standards-based classroom assessments of English proficiency: A review of issues, current developments, and future directions for research
  Posted on 27 Jul 2011 at 5:41 am
  by Llosa, L.
  

  With the United States’ adoption of a standards-based approach to education, most attention has focused on the large-scale, high-stakes assessments intended to measure students’ mastery of standard...

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  With the United States’ adoption of a standards-based approach to education, most attention has focused on the large-scale, high-stakes assessments intended to measure students’ mastery of standards for accountability purposes. Less attention has been paid to the role of standards-based assessments in the classroom. The purpose of this paper is to discuss key issues and challenges related to the use of standards-based classroom assessments to assess English language learners’ English proficiency. First, the paper describes a study of a standards-based classroom assessment of English proficiency in a large urban school district in California. Second, using this study as an example and drawing from the literature in language testing on classroom assessment, this paper highlights the major issues and challenges involved in using English proficiency standards as the basis for classroom assessment. Finally, the article outlines a research agenda for the field given current developments in the areas of English proficiency standards and classroom assessment.

  
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• Accountability-assessment under No Child Left Behind: Agenda, practice, and future
  Posted on 27 Jul 2011 at 5:41 am
  by Deville, C., Chalhoub-Deville, M.
  
  
• Testing English language learners under No Child Left Behind
  Posted on 27 Jul 2011 at 5:41 am
  by Bunch, M. B.
  

  Title III of Public Law 107-110 (No Child Left Behind; NCLB) provided for creation of assessments of English language learners (ELLs) and established, through the Enhanced Assessment Grant program,...

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  Title III of Public Law 107-110 (No Child Left Behind; NCLB) provided for creation of assessments of English language learners (ELLs) and established, through the Enhanced Assessment Grant program, a platform from which four consortia of states developed ELL tests aligned to rigorous statewide content standards. Those four tests (ACCESS for ELLs, CELLA, ELDA, and MWA) are now in use in one or more states, along with a host of other commercially available or locally developed tests. The tests (those developed by consortia as well as the others) are quite similar in many ways, principally in their contents: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. Most measure these domains with a combination of multiple-choice (MC) and open-ended (OE) test items. This article provides an overview to the four consortium-developed tests as well as an in-depth analysis of one representative example. It also provides a summary of the characteristics of four commercially available tests. Not surprisingly, the four commercially available tests are rather similar to one another and to the consortium-developed tests in terms of content, psychometric characteristics, and development. The primary difference between the two sets is that the commercially available tests tend to report percentile ranks as well as proficiency levels. Now that the Race to the Top program is in place, we face many of the same challenges we faced a decade ago when NCLB was passed. While the Enhanced Assessment Grant competition emphasized summative assessment, the latest competition emphasizes formative assessment, which gives rise to the hope that educators can not only discover students’ strengths and weaknesses with these new tests, but do so in a timely manner and have opportunities to use the information constructively. Current work by at least one organization is encouraging in this regard.

  
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• Book review: K. Menken (2008). English learners left behind: Standardized testing as Language Policy. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. 216 pp. ISBN 9781853599972, $39.95 (pbk)
  Posted on 27 Jul 2011 at 5:41 am
  by Burke, A. M.
  
  
• Competencies Needed in Oral Communication in English among Thai Undergraduate Public Relations Students: A Substantial Gap between Expectations and Reality
  Posted on 30 Jun 2011 at 11:38 am
  by Pattanapichet, F., Chinokul, S.
  

  This article investigates the competencies needed for oral communication in English among Thai undergraduate public relations students for handling public relations job interviews and performing en...

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  This article investigates the competencies needed for oral communication in English among Thai undergraduate public relations students for handling public relations job interviews and performing entry-level public relations work. To identify these competencies, the study identified and involved all of the stakeholders in the data reliability assessment process. The DACUM process, a research-based methodology of developing a curriculum, was modified through interviews with experts in the field to compile and validate the list of the competencies needed. As a result, the validated list consists of four competencies needed for public relations job interviews and eight competencies needed for entry-level public relations work. For triangulation purposes, a questionnaire survey on 222 public relations students and semi-structured interviews with a focus group were conducted to explore the students’ perspectives. The article discusses a huge gap between expectations and the real-world situation and provides suggestions to help bridge this gap.

  
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• Developing a Framework to Measure Process-oriented Writing Competence: A Case of Vietnamese EFL Students' Formal Portfolio Assessment
  Posted on 30 Jun 2011 at 11:38 am
  by Mai Thu Duong, , Nguyen Thi Kim Cuc, , Griffin, P.
  

  Portfolios have gained great popularity as a method of process-oriented writing assessment in the last 20 years. Despite the apparent advantages, as with other new methods of assessment, they still...

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  Portfolios have gained great popularity as a method of process-oriented writing assessment in the last 20 years. Despite the apparent advantages, as with other new methods of assessment, they still raise many controversies, particularly those regarding the validity of their contents and assessment. This article describes the first stages in the process of developing the framework for assessing the performance in writing portfolios of students who speak English as a foreign language at Vietnam National University (HULIS-VNU). One of the aims is to argue for the validity of the portfolio writing competence as a construct for use in formal assessment. In terms of methodology, developmental assessment theories are integrated in a five-stage process of instrument development, which integrates qualitative and quantitative research techniques. The completion of the first two stages of the study reveals that 36 indicators, which are specifiable into 138 quality criteria, are applicable in measuring portfolio writing competence. Further validation stages are being implemented to examine these results, but the initial findings have established the assessment framework for the construct. The results indicate the feasibility of designing assessment instruments which encompass both product-oriented and process-oriented features of the writing job for formal assessment purposes and achieving a higher efficiency for performance assessment in general.

  
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• L1-L2 sentence translation in classroom grammar tests
  Posted on 23 Jun 2011 at 10:17 am
  by Salem, I.
  

  L1–L2 translation of separate sentences is one kind of task format used by mainstream EFL teachers to assess their learners' grammatical accuracy. Aimed at improving teacher-written translation ite...

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  L1–L2 translation of separate sentences is one kind of task format used by mainstream EFL teachers to assess their learners' grammatical accuracy. Aimed at improving teacher-written translation items, this study analyses linguistic features potentially causing such decontextualized cues (and their target responses) to sound odd or untypical of naturally used language. The findings show that some items elicit structures that are marked in their contexts, others are translationally overchallenging, and yet others have textual flaws. The following research method was employed: English-Hebrew bilinguals, mostly EFL teachers, translated seven cues from Hebrew to English. This resulted in numerous translation options for each cue. The analysis of these multiple translations and their comparison with corpus frequency data yielded most of the above-mentioned findings. In addition, another group of Hebrew-English bilinguals translated the previous group's most frequent translations back into Hebrew. This added information about the textual quality of the Hebrew cue.

  
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• Implementing the European Language Portfolio in a Turkish context
  Posted on 23 Jun 2011 at 10:17 am
  by Yilmaz, S., Akcan, S.
  

  This study explores the way in which the European Language Portfolio (ELP) is used for teaching English as a foreign language to young learners with the aim of enhancing their involvement in the la...

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  This study explores the way in which the European Language Portfolio (ELP) is used for teaching English as a foreign language to young learners with the aim of enhancing their involvement in the language learning process. The data for the study were collected through observations in a fourth-grade and a fifth-grade classroom (students’ ages varied from 9- to 11-years-old) over a 12-week period, interviews with the two English teachers, focus group interviews with the students, audio recordings of two self-assessment sessions, as well as student and teacher materials collected on site. The findings of the study show that the ELP was implemented through five common practices: raising awareness, goal tracking, making choices, reflection, and self-assessment. The article concludes with a summary of the benefits and constraints of the implementation along with some recommendations.

  
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• Speechant: a vowel notation system to teach English pronunciation
  Posted on 17 Jun 2011 at 7:55 pm
  by dos Reis, J., Hazan, V.
  

  This paper introduces a new vowel notation system aimed at aiding the teaching of English pronunciation. This notation system, designed as an enhancement to orthographic text, was designed to use c...

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  This paper introduces a new vowel notation system aimed at aiding the teaching of English pronunciation. This notation system, designed as an enhancement to orthographic text, was designed to use concepts borrowed from the representation of musical notes and is also linked to the acoustic characteristics of vowel sounds. Vowel timbre is represented in terms of the height of the symbol and vowel duration in terms of the length of the symbol. The Speechant system was evaluated in EFL adult education classes in Portugal. A formal assessment that measured the impact of a term's tuition by looking at changes in accent ratings of the learners over that period showed that the group taught using the Speechant system showed greater improvements in pronunciation than the control group. Speechant may be an especially useful aid to pronunciation teaching in situations in which foreign languages are taught without the benefit of technological support.

  
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• Two Approaches for Using Multiple Anchors in NEAT Equating: A Description and Demonstration
  Posted on 17 Jun 2011 at 11:13 am
  by Moses, T., Deng, W., Zhang, Y.-L.
  

  Nonequivalent groups with anchor test (NEAT) equating functions that use a single anchor can have accuracy problems when the groups are extremely different and/or when the anchor weakly correlates ...

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  Nonequivalent groups with anchor test (NEAT) equating functions that use a single anchor can have accuracy problems when the groups are extremely different and/or when the anchor weakly correlates with the tests being equated. Proposals have been made to address these issues by incorporating more than one anchor into NEAT equating functions. These proposals have not been extensively considered or comparatively evaluated. This study evaluates two proposed approaches for incorporating more than one anchor into NEAT equating functions, poststratification and missing data imputation. The approaches are studied and compared in an example of equating mixed format tests where the use of multiple equating is expected to improve equating. The results show that both approaches produced nearly equivalent equating results but that the poststratification approach has some flexibility and accuracy advantages over imputation in terms of standard errors.

  
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• Automated Test Assembly Using lp_Solve Version 5.5 in R
  Posted on 17 Jun 2011 at 11:13 am
  by Diao, Q., van der Linden, W. J.
  

  This article reviews the use of the software program lp_solve version 5.5 for solving mixed-integer automated test assembly (ATA) problems. The program is freely available under Lesser General Publ...

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  This article reviews the use of the software program lp_solve version 5.5 for solving mixed-integer automated test assembly (ATA) problems. The program is freely available under Lesser General Public License 2 (LGPL2). It can be called from the statistical language R using the lpSolveAPI interface. Three empirical problems are presented to demonstrate how to use the program and interface to (a) simultaneously assemble multiple test forms with absolute targets for their test information functions, (b) assemble shadow tests for computerized adaptive testing, and (c) assemble multistage tests using relative targets for their test information functions, all subject to various quantitative and categorical constraints. The results of this study indicate that it is now possible for researchers and testing organizations to implement ATA for small to moderately sized test assembly problems using free software.

  
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• Structural Priming and Second Language Learning
  Posted on 16 Jun 2011 at 12:57 pm
  by Jeong-Ah Shin
  
  Structural priming (or syntactic priming) is a speaker's tendency to reuse the same structural pattern as one that was previously encountered (Bock, 1986). This study investigated (a) whether the i... (show all)
  Structural priming (or syntactic priming) is a speaker's tendency to reuse the same structural pattern as one that was previously encountered (Bock, 1986). This study investigated (a) whether the implicit learning processes involved in long-lag structural priming lead to differential second language (L2) improvement in producing two structural types (complex, double-object dative and simple, separated phrasal-verb structures) compared to more explicit memory processes involved in no-lag structural priming and (b) whether additional explicit instruction leads to increased production of target structures than either implicit learning or explicit memory processes alone. Learners showed an overall increase in target structure production in a picture description task and marginal improvement in grammaticality judgment tests after the structural priming session. Results revealed that explicit instruction combined with structural priming speeded short-term improvement more than implicit instruction involving implicit learning alone in the form of long-lag structural priming. However, only implicit learning via long-lag structural priming resulted in increased production of the complex structure during a second testing session 1 day later. This study is the first to directly compare explicit instruction to implicit instruction in a structural priming paradigm, taking into account both the complexity of structures and the long-term effects of instruction on L2 production.
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• Research on academic literacy development in sheltered instruction classrooms
  Posted on 14 Jun 2011 at 10:46 am
  by Short, D. J., Echevarria, J., Richards-Tutor, C.
  

  This article describes an extended program of research in sheltered instruction and the effects on the academic literacy development of English language learners. It also highlights the challenges ...

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  This article describes an extended program of research in sheltered instruction and the effects on the academic literacy development of English language learners. It also highlights the challenges of scaling up an instructional intervention. The intervention was the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Model, an approach that teaches subject area curriculum to students learning through a second language using techniques that make the content material accessible and also help develop the students’ second language skills. Three successive studies looked at teacher change over time and student achievement on standardized assessments and researcher-developed measures. Results of the three studies reveal that students with teachers who were trained in the SIOP Model of sheltered instruction and implemented it with fidelity performed significantly better on assessments of academic language and literacy than students with teachers who were not trained in the model. The article offers guidance for strengthening professional development for teachers so the quality of instruction they deliver to English language learners improves and the students strengthen their English language and academic outcomes.

  
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• High Stakes Accountability and Policy Implementation: Teacher Decision Making in Bilingual Classrooms in Texas
  Posted on 3 Jun 2011 at 12:51 am
  by Palmer, D., Snodgrass Rangel, V.
  

  This article contributes to an emerging body of literature on the impact of high stakes testing accountability policies on implementation and teaching practice. It uses a theory of implementation, ...

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  This article contributes to an emerging body of literature on the impact of high stakes testing accountability policies on implementation and teaching practice. It uses a theory of implementation, sense-making, to highlight the process by which policy and context shape teacher decision making. We focus on teachers in bilingual classrooms in an urban district in Texas where we found that teachers make decisions in an environment that exerts both formal and informal pressures to limit the curriculum they offer their students and privilege test preparation. Teachers struggle to reconcile their context, constituted by their students’ specific pedagogical and linguistic needs, with the pressures of their high stakes testing environment.

  
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• English Language Learners and Academic Achievement: Revisiting the Threshold Hypothesis
  Posted on 25 May 2011 at 11:26 am
  by Yuliya Ardasheva
  
  This nonexperimental study explored the predictive strength of English proficiency levels on academic achievement of middle school students in a sample of 17,470 native English-speaking (NES) stude... (show all)
  This nonexperimental study explored the predictive strength of English proficiency levels on academic achievement of middle school students in a sample of 17,470 native English-speaking (NES) students, 558 English language learners (current ELLs), and 500 redesignated fluent English proficient students (former ELLs). Results of multilevel analyses indicated that after controlling for relevant student- and school-level characteristics, former ELLs significantly outperformed current ELL and NES students in reading (effect sizes: 1.07 and 0.52) and mathematics (effect sizes: 0.86 and 0.42). The results support Cummins's (1979, 2000) lower level threshold hypothesis predicting that upon reaching adequate proficiency in the language of schooling and testing, ELLs would no longer experience academic disadvantages. Refinements for the theory and directions for future research are discussed.
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• Reviewing evidence-based practice for pupils with dyslexia and literacy difficulties
  Posted on 18 May 2011 at 8:40 am
  by Yvonne Griffiths
  
  There is now a strong evidence base from theory and research providing a ?template? to inform practice at Wave 2, guiding the design and implementation of time-limited effective early intervention ... (show all)
  There is now a strong evidence base from theory and research providing a ?template? to inform practice at Wave 2, guiding the design and implementation of time-limited effective early intervention programmes for pupils identified as ?at risk? of reading difficulties following initial literacy instruction (Rose, 2009). In contrast, there is currently an absence of evidence to guide the more fine-grained selection and design of specific interventions (Wave 3) for those nonresponders to otherwise effective reading intervention. In this paper, we first outline our current understanding of the characteristics of effective early intervention programmes, and of the pupils who do not respond. Three theoretically motivated single-case studies from developmental theory and processing models of skilled performance are then considered as a source of evidence providing useful insights into the type of assessment needed to inform the planning of highly individualised intervention programmes for pupils with severe and persisting literacy difficulties.
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• Just-in-time pedagogy: teachers' perspectives on the response to intervention framework
  Posted on 17 May 2011 at 10:13 am
  by Kathleen A. Wilcox
  
  The purpose of this mixed methods research is to examine teachers' perspectives on the response to intervention (RTI) framework and its implementation in Michigan and Texas schools. Both states hav... (show all)
  The purpose of this mixed methods research is to examine teachers' perspectives on the response to intervention (RTI) framework and its implementation in Michigan and Texas schools. Both states have been leaders in literacy, increasing preservice and in-service teacher certification standards and developing similar batteries for assessing literacy skills. Using the International Reading Association's RTI principles, the following question directed this inquiry: what are the perspectives of teachers in various educational, geographic, economic and cultural settings of the RTI? The research was developed through questionnaires, focus groups and semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed that teacher professional development, assessments and collaboration for instruction were highly integrated themes when developing RTI strategies as reforming practice and increasing student literacy. Michigan and Texas teachers were more confident and comfortable in measuring and identifying students with reading difficulties over their ability to prevent learning disabilities through their instruction.
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• The role of background knowledge in text comprehension for children learning English as an additional language
  Posted on 17 May 2011 at 10:12 am
  by Kelly Burgoyne
  
  Children learning English as an additional language (EAL) often experience difficulties with reading comprehension relative to their monolingual peers. While low levels of vocabulary appear to be o... (show all)
  Children learning English as an additional language (EAL) often experience difficulties with reading comprehension relative to their monolingual peers. While low levels of vocabulary appear to be one factor underlying these difficulties, other factors such as a relative lack of appropriate background knowledge may also contribute. Sixteen children learning EAL and 16 of their monolingual peers, matched for word reading accuracy, were assessed using a standard measure of reading comprehension and an experimental measure of reading comprehension for which relevant background knowledge was taught before assessing understanding. Tests of receptive and expressive vocabulary were also completed. Results confirmed lower levels of reading comprehension for children learning EAL for both standard and ?background? controlled measures. Analysis of comprehension by question type on the experimental measure showed that while both groups made use of taught knowledge to answer inferential questions, children learning EAL had specific difficulties with both literal questions and questions requiring the interpretation of a simile. It is suggested that relevant background information should be used to facilitate children's text comprehension. Furthermore, several factors, especially vocabulary differences, but also text search strategies, context use and comprehension monitoring skills, may contribute to the comprehension difficulties experienced by children learning EAL.
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• The Factor Structure of the CIBS-II-Readiness Assessment
  Posted on 9 May 2011 at 2:36 am
  by Gotch, C. M., French, B. F.
  

  The Brigance Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills-II (CIBS-II)-Readiness form is a diagnostic battery intended for children aged 5 and 6 years. The CIBS-II-Readiness is a new version of the CIBS...

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  The Brigance Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills-II (CIBS-II)-Readiness form is a diagnostic battery intended for children aged 5 and 6 years. The CIBS-II-Readiness is a new version of the CIBS-Revised-Readiness and includes updated normative information on a larger representative sample in comparison to the CIBS-Revised-Readiness. Empirical support for the CIBS-Revised-Readiness was lacking, especially score validity evidence. Adequate score validity information needs to be provided. The purpose of this study was to investigate evidence of construct validity of the composite scores on the CIBS-II-Readiness by examining the internal structure of the instrument and correlations with external measures. Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to compare the model implied by the composite score structure of the assessment to other plausible models. A six-factor model was supported. CIBS-II-Readiness scores had significant correlations with the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills scores, another widely used measure assessing five major components of early literacy.

  
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• The Reliability and Validity of WISC-IV Scores With Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children
  Posted on 9 May 2011 at 2:36 am
  by Krouse, H. E., Braden, J. P.
  

  The present study examined the reliability and validity of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) for use with deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HOH) children. Psychologist...

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  The present study examined the reliability and validity of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) for use with deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HOH) children. Psychologists (n = 10) provided data for 128 D/HOH children who were assessed with the WISC-IV as part of routine assessments. All the WISC-IV subtests (8) and indexes (2) examined had split-half internal consistency coefficients that were higher (p < .05) than the values reported for the normative sample. The mean Perceptual Reasoning Index (M = 93.21) and Verbal Comprehension Index (M = 80.86) for D/HOH children were lower (p < .05) than the population mean (M = 100). Of the 44 inter-subtest correlations calculated, 29 were significantly greater than zero. The results support the reliability of the WISC-IV scores for D/ HOH children, although the findings suggest that the Perceptual Reasoning Index may have a different meaning than Performance IQ for D/HOH children.

  
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• Comprehension of written sentences as a core component of children's reading comprehension
  Posted on 6 May 2011 at 4:18 am
  by Jean Ecalle
  
  Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that sentence processing is an essential mediatory skill between word recognition and text comprehension in reading. In Experiment 1, a semanti... (show all)
  Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that sentence processing is an essential mediatory skill between word recognition and text comprehension in reading. In Experiment 1, a semantic similarity judgement task was used with children from Grade 2 to Grade 9. They had to say whether two written sentences had the same (or very similar) meanings or whether the meanings of the two sentences were very different. As expected, performance improved with age both on the high-frequency words and with increasingly complex sentences. In Experiment 2 with children in Grade 3, scores in written sentence comprehension and vocabulary made the most important unique contribution to the reading comprehension of an expository text. The results are discussed first, in the light of a general framework in which sentence-level skill is at the core of reading comprehension and second, with reference to the issue of reading assessment.
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• The Impact of Induction and Mentoring Programs for Beginning Teachers: A Critical Review of the Research
  Posted on 5 May 2011 at 12:50 pm
  by Ingersoll, R. M., Strong, M.
  

  This review critically examines 15 empirical studies, conducted since the mid-1980s, on the effects of support, guidance, and orientation programs—collectively known as induction—for beginning teac...

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  This review critically examines 15 empirical studies, conducted since the mid-1980s, on the effects of support, guidance, and orientation programs—collectively known as induction—for beginning teachers. Most of the studies reviewed provide empirical support for the claim that support and assistance for beginning teachers have a positive impact on three sets of outcomes: teacher commitment and retention, teacher classroom instructional practices, and student achievement. Of the studies on commitment and retention, most showed that beginning teachers who participated in induction showed positive impacts. For classroom instructional practices, the majority of studies reviewed showed that beginning teachers who participated in some kind of induction performed better at various aspects of teaching, such as keeping students on task, using effective student questioning practices, adjusting classroom activities to meet students’ interests, maintaining a positive classroom atmosphere, and demonstrating successful classroom management. For student achievement, almost all of the studies showed that students of beginning teachers who participated in induction had higher scores, or gains, on academic achievement tests. There were, however, exceptions to this overall pattern—in particular a large randomized controlled trial of induction in a sample of large, urban, low-income schools—which found some significant positive effects on student achievement but no effects on either teacher retention or teachers’ classroom practices. The review closes by attempting to reconcile these contradictory findings and by identifying gaps in the research base and relevant questions that have not been addressed and warrant further research.

  
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• Accountability Policies and Readiness for College for Diverse Students
  Posted on 20 Apr 2011 at 4:22 am
  by Droogsma Musoba, G.
  

  Following a national trend, state policy has focused on accountability measures such as high-stakes high school exit exams, standards-based reforms, and graduation curriculum requirements. Yet the ...

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  Following a national trend, state policy has focused on accountability measures such as high-stakes high school exit exams, standards-based reforms, and graduation curriculum requirements. Yet the effect of these accountability policies on students’ readiness for college is relatively untested. In a multilevel model (students within states), the study asked, "Are accountability school reform policies positively or negatively associated with readiness for college for students from different ethnic and income groups?" Exit exam policies and degree of implementation of state standards were not significantly related to academic readiness as measured by composite SAT scores. Math graduation numeric curriculum requirements were negatively related to SAT score for Whites.

  
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• Book review: 1. G. Extra, M. Spotti and P. Van Avermaet (Eds.) (2009). Language Testing, migration and citizenship: Cross-national perspectives on integration regimes. London and New York: Continuum. (Series: Advances in Sociolinguistics). x + 268 pp. ISBN: 9781847063458, {pound}85.00 (hbk) 2. G. Hogan-Brun, C. Mar-Molinero and P. Stevenson (Eds.) (2009). Discourses on language and integration: Critical perspectives on Language Testing regimes in Europe. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (Series: Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 33). xiii + 170 pp. ISBN: 9789027206237, 90.00/US$135.00 (hbk); ISBN: 9789027289704, 90.00/US$135.00 (ebk) 3. C. Slade and M. Mollering (Eds.) (2010). From migrant to citizen: Testing language, testing culture. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. (Series: Language and Globalization (edited by Sue Wright and Helen Kelly-Holmes)). xix + 279 pp. ISBN: 9780230576339, {pound}55.00 (hbk)
  Posted on 14 Apr 2011 at 5:59 am
  by Ryan, K.
  
  
• Book review: G. Fulcher (2010). Practical language testing. London: Hodder Education. 304 pp. ISBN: 9780340984482, {pound}19.99 (pbk)
  Posted on 14 Apr 2011 at 5:59 am
  by Read, J.
  
  
• Testing the lexical recognition task with Spanish/English bilinguals in the United States
  Posted on 14 Apr 2011 at 5:59 am
  by Fairclough, M.
  

  This investigation intends to assess the effectiveness of a lexical recognition test (Meara & Buxton, 1987) as a placement tool that distinguishes among levels of two groups of students: Spanish he...

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  This investigation intends to assess the effectiveness of a lexical recognition test (Meara & Buxton, 1987) as a placement tool that distinguishes among levels of two groups of students: Spanish heritage language learners (HLL) and second language learners (SLL). Three hundred and thirty university students from four different levels completed a 10-minute/200-word task based on Davies’ (2006) Spanish frequency corpora. The results were compared to those from a control group of bilingual graduate students. As comparison measures, about half of the students completed a Cloze Test while the rest were asked to carry out a Multiple-task Test. The results of the study suggest that for SLL, and HLL at the lower levels of language ability, a lexical test based on the 5000 most frequent words in Spanish is a valid and practical testing tool that correlates with other measures of language proficiency. For more advanced levels of HLL, a wider range of words is necessary to avoid the ceiling effect.

  
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• The validation of parallel test forms: 'Mountain' and 'beach' picture series for assessment of language skills
  Posted on 14 Apr 2011 at 5:59 am
  by Bae, J., Lee, Y.-S.
  

  Pictures are widely used to elicit expressive language skills, and pictures must be established as parallel before changes in ability can be demonstrated by assessment using pictures prompts. Why p...

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  Pictures are widely used to elicit expressive language skills, and pictures must be established as parallel before changes in ability can be demonstrated by assessment using pictures prompts. Why parallel prompts are required and what it is necessary to do to ensure that prompts are in fact parallel is not widely known. To date, evidence of equivalence has been documented for only a handful of picture instruments. The present study aims to demonstrate that two picture series, one describing hiking on a mountain, the other a picnic at a beach, designed to elicit narrative writing from children, are statistically parallel. To verify their being parallel, a random group design and a covariate were used. MANCOVA and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the two alternate picture forms were parallel in terms of means, variances, and factor structures with regard to multiple writing components. This study makes a unique contribution to picture-based assessment, first by publishing this parallel picture set and making it available as a tool for assessing children’s productive skills using longitudinal designs, and second by demonstrating a process by which any other test forms, pictorial or otherwise, can be validated as parallel.

  
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• Convergent vs. divergent assessment: Impact on college EFL students' motivation and self-regulated learning strategies
  Posted on 14 Apr 2011 at 5:59 am
  by Huang, S.-C.
  

  This study examined two types of classroom assessment events, the more closed convergent assessments (CA) versus the more open-ended divergent assessments (DA), to see if they influence learners di...

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  This study examined two types of classroom assessment events, the more closed convergent assessments (CA) versus the more open-ended divergent assessments (DA), to see if they influence learners differently in terms of motivation and learning strategies. Participants were 105 college freshmen in Taiwan with the same instructor placed under one listening and two speaking classes. In these intact groups, each student experienced two types of assessment, a more traditional test (the CA) and a group performance assessment (the DA). Immediately after they experienced each assessment event, participants reported on their task-specific motivation and learning strategies. Results indicated that CAs were better received by high self-efficacious students and DAs by low scorers. After controlling for self-efficacy, a comparison revealed that students reacted differently in the listening and speaking classes. More specifically, in speaking student motivation and strategy were higher for the DA than for the CA, whereas in the listening class the pattern was reversed. Local educational culture and the nature of assessment events are then discussed.

  
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• Investigating the effectiveness of individualized feedback to rating behavior -- a longitudinal study
  Posted on 14 Apr 2011 at 5:59 am
  by Knoch, U.
  

  The effectiveness of individualized feedback on rater behavior has been investigated in several previous studies (e.g. Elder, Knoch, Barkhuizen, & von Randow, 2005; Lunt, Morton, & Wigglesworth, 19...

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  The effectiveness of individualized feedback on rater behavior has been investigated in several previous studies (e.g. Elder, Knoch, Barkhuizen, & von Randow, 2005; Lunt, Morton, & Wigglesworth, 1994; O’Sullivan & Rignall, 2007; Wigglesworth, 1993). The findings of these studies are somewhat inconclusive. However, all of these studies investigated the value of such feedback on a one-off basis, and it is thus not clear how raters use this type of feedback over several administrations of a test. Furthermore, previous research has focused only on one language skill at a time, and we do not know if raters can incorporate the feedback in a similar way when rating speaking and writing. This study tracks the rating behavior of 19 raters assessing a large-scale English for specific purposes (ESP) assessment for the health professions over eight administrations. After each administration, raters received detailed performance profiles of their rating behavior which were generated using many-faceted Rasch measurement. Raters also completed a questionnaire and a subset of raters were interviewed to ascertain their views on the effectiveness of this feedback. The findings showed that the raters were rating no better when receiving the feedback than when they had not received feedback and neither speaking nor writing raters were able to incorporate the feedback more successfully. Although the raters were generally positive about the success of the feedback, there was no relationship between their perceptions of the feedback and the success of the feedback.

  
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• Does a rater's familiarity with a candidate's pronunciation affect the rating in oral proficiency interviews?
  Posted on 14 Apr 2011 at 5:59 am
  by Carey, M. D., Mannell, R. H., Dunn, P. K.
  

  This study investigated factors that could affect inter-examiner reliability in the pronunciation assessment component of speaking tests. We hypothesized that the rating of pronunciation is suscept...

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  This study investigated factors that could affect inter-examiner reliability in the pronunciation assessment component of speaking tests. We hypothesized that the rating of pronunciation is susceptible to variation in assessment due to the amount of exposure examiners have to nonnative English accents. An inter-rater variability analysis was conducted on the English pronunciation ratings of three test candidate interlanguages: Chinese, Korean, and Indian English. Pronunciation was rated by 99 International English Language Testing System (IELTS) examiners across five geographically dispersed test centres. The examiners had either prolonged exposure, or no, or little exposure to the interlanguage of the candidates. A significant proportion of examiners rated pronunciation higher when they had prolonged exposure, and lower when they had no, or little, exposure to the candidates’ interlanguage. The location of the test centre also had a significant effect on the pronunciation rating, independent of the familiarity variable, with a significant proportion of NNS raters scoring candidates from their home country higher than those who were not. It is recommended that interlanguage phonology familiarity should be considered in the design of speaking tests and rater training and that research is required into test centre bias and the phonological judgements and awareness of OPI raters.

  
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• Impact and consequences of school-based assessment (SBA): Students' and parents' views of SBA in Hong Kong
  Posted on 14 Apr 2011 at 5:59 am
  by Liying Cheng, , Andrews, S., Ying Yu,
  

  School-based assessment (SBA) has recently been introduced into the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examinations (HKCEE) in English. The present study was conducted within the context of this as...

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  School-based assessment (SBA) has recently been introduced into the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examinations (HKCEE) in English. The present study was conducted within the context of this assessment change to investigate students’ and parents’ perceptions of the impact of SBA. Two surveys were employed to explore students’ and parents’ perceptions of SBA and their perceptions of the impact of SBA on learning. The results from the student survey demonstrated a relationship between students’ perceptions of SBA-related learning activities and their perceptions of their own language competence. The results also showed significant differences between students’ perceptions of the learning activities they had taken part in during the previous school year and those they were currently engaging in. In addition, parents’ perceptions of SBA and the opportunities for them to know about SBA significantly and positively predicted their support for their children’s SBA learning. Parents’ education level and the amount of time they spent with their child daily also predicted their support for their children’s SBA learning, though to a lesser extent. Further, parents’ perceptions about the SBA are directly and significantly related to their children’s perceptions about SBA. Taking the results from both students’ and parents’ surveys together, we have gained a better understanding of the complexity of the impact of SBA within the Hong Kong educational context, as perceived by students and their parents.

  
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• The TORGO database of acoustic and articulatory speech from speakers with dysarthria
  Posted on 25 Mar 2011 at 1:55 pm
  

  Abstract  This paper describes the acquisition of a new database of dysarthric speech in terms of aligned acoustics and articulatory data. This database currently includes data from seven individu...

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  Abstract  This paper describes the acquisition of a new database of dysarthric speech in terms of aligned acoustics and articulatory data. This database currently includes data from seven individuals with speech impediments caused by cerebral palsy or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and age- and gender-matched control subjects. Each of the individuals with speech impediments are given standardized assessments of speech-motor function by a speech-language pathologist. Acoustic data is obtained by one head-mounted and one directional microphone. Articulatory data is obtained by electromagnetic articulography, which allows the measurement of the tongue and other articulators during speech, and by 3D reconstruction from binocular video sequences. The stimuli are obtained from a variety of sources including the TIMIT database, lists of identified phonetic contrasts, and assessments of speech intelligibility. This paper also includes some analysis as to how dysarthric speech differs from non-dysarthric speech according to features such as length of phonemes, and pronunciation errors.

  Content Type Journal ArticleCategory Original PaperPages 1-19DOI 10.1007/s10579-011-9145-0Authors Frank Rudzicz, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON CanadaAravind Kumar Namasivayam, The Speech and Stuttering Institute, Toronto, ON CanadaTalya Wolff, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Toronto, ON Canada Journal Language Resources and EvaluationOnline ISSN 1574-0218Print ISSN 1574-020X
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• A comparative study of the effects of input-based and production-based instruction on vocabulary acquisition by young EFL learners
  Posted on 14 Mar 2011 at 12:15 pm
  by Shintani, N.
  

  The study reported in this article investigated the comparative effects of two types of treatment — one of which emphasized input and the other output — on the vocabulary acquisition of young EFL l...

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  The study reported in this article investigated the comparative effects of two types of treatment — one of which emphasized input and the other output — on the vocabulary acquisition of young EFL learners. In the input-based instruction, the students were not required to produce output whereas in the production-based instruction the students were required to produce output. Thirty-six Japanese children aged 6—8 were divided into three groups (input-based, production-based and control group), received six weeks instruction and took four types of vocabulary tests as a pre-, post- and delayed post-test. The findings provide further evidence that both input-based and production-based instruction lead to both receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. In general, the results show similar levels of effects for input-based and production-based instruction on vocabulary acquisition. However, an examination of process features indicates that the input-based tasks provided opportunities for richer interaction for the learners than the production-based activities. This may explain the better performance of the input-based group on the task-based comprehension test and the same levels of achievement in the production tests despite relatively fewer opportunities for second language (L2) production.

  
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• Volume 31
  Posted on 28 Feb 2011 at 6:00 pm
  
  Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Volume 31 Annual Review of Applied Linguistics reviews research in key areas in the broad field of applied linguistics. Each issue is thematic, covering... (show all)
  Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Volume 31 Annual Review of Applied Linguistics reviews research in key areas in the broad field of applied linguistics. Each issue is thematic, covering the topic by means of critical summaries, overviews and bibliographic citations. Every fourth or fifth issue surveys applied linguistics broadly, offering timely essays on language learning and pedagogy, discourse analysis, teaching innovations, second language acquisition, computer-assisted instruction, language use in professional contexts, sociolinguistics, language policy, and language assessment, to name just a few of the areas reviewed. It provides over 500 new citations each year. The theme for Volume 26 (2006) is 'Lingua franca languages'.
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• Understanding Discrepancies in Rater Judgement on National-Level Oral Examination Tasks
  Posted on 28 Feb 2011 at 12:23 pm
  by Ang-Aw, H. T., Chuen Meng Goh, C.
  

  The oral examination is an important component of the high-stakes ‘O’ Level examination in Singapore taken by 16-17 year olds whose first language may or may not be English. In spite of this, there...

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  The oral examination is an important component of the high-stakes ‘O’ Level examination in Singapore taken by 16-17 year olds whose first language may or may not be English. In spite of this, there has been sparse research into the examination. This paper reports findings of an exploratory study which attempted to determine whether there were any discrepancies in rater judgements and thereafter, explore the nature and scope of the discrepancies identified. Four audio recordings were obtained from a simulated oral examination of four candidates conducted by a trained ‘O’ Level oral examiner. Seven other trained ‘O’ Level oral examiners were asked to rate the recordings individually and provide concurrent verbal reports. Questionnaires were also given to the raters for data triangulation after the verbalization. The data were analysed through Verbal Protocol Analysis and descriptive statistics. Rater discrepancies detected in the scores were qualitatively determined to be due to four differences: emphases on factors assessed, constructs of oral proficiency, rater interpretations and approaches in assessment. These findings provide valuable insights into raters’ perceptions of the construct of speaking and offer implications for rater training and the development of rating scales.

  
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• A Bilingual Vocabulary Size Test of English for Vietnamese Learners
  Posted on 28 Feb 2011 at 12:23 pm
  by Le Thi Cam Nguyen, , Nation, P.
  

  This article describes the development and validation of a Vietnamese bilingual version of the Vocabulary Size Test — a test which measures written receptive vocabulary size. The test can be used t...

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  This article describes the development and validation of a Vietnamese bilingual version of the Vocabulary Size Test — a test which measures written receptive vocabulary size. The test can be used to measure the English vocabulary size of Vietnamese learners of English. A learner’s total vocabulary size is calculated by multiplying their test result by 100. The research adds to our knowledge of vocabulary size testing in the following ways. First, it shows that a bilingual version of a monolingual test performs in much the same way as the monolingual test, distinguishing learners of different proficiency levels and returning lower scores at later levels of the test. Second, it shows that every level of the test should be sat, otherwise there will be a considerable underestimation of learners’ vocabulary sizes. This suggests limitations to the previously accepted assumption that learners’ vocabulary growth can be largely related to word frequency. Third, it shows that bilingual tests are feasible alternatives to more challenging and time-consuming monolingual tests.

  
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• Impact of early code-skill and oral-comprehension training on reading achievement in first grade
  Posted on 24 Jan 2011 at 8:35 am
  by Maryse Bianco
  
  In a 3-year longitudinal study, we examined the relationships between oral language development, early training and reading acquisition on word-identification and reading-comprehension tests admini... (show all)
  In a 3-year longitudinal study, we examined the relationships between oral language development, early training and reading acquisition on word-identification and reading-comprehension tests administered to a sample of 687 French children. Hierarchical linear models showed that both phonological awareness and oral comprehension at the age of 4 years were relevant to reading acquisition 2 years later. These two broad skills explained separate parts of the variance on both outcome measures, while revealing opposite effects: phonological skills explained more variance for alphabetic reading skills and oral comprehension explained more variance for reading comprehension. We also assessed the effects of two preschool training programmes focusing on either phonological awareness or comprehension skills. The results showed that phonological awareness training had a positive effect on alphabetic scores, and comprehension training had a positive effect on reading comprehension. These results provide insight into early oral instruction and contribute to the theoretical debate about the linguistic predictors of literacy acquisition.
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• Models of power and the deletion of participation in a classroom literacy event
  Posted on 7 Dec 2010 at 3:42 am
  by Gloria E. Jacobs
  
  This article uses the analytic lens of power relations and models of power to examine how the participation of two students in an urban US eighth-grade English language arts class was symbolically ... (show all)
  This article uses the analytic lens of power relations and models of power to examine how the participation of two students in an urban US eighth-grade English language arts class was symbolically and literally deleted. The researcher asks why do some students fail despite being placed in a technologically rich educational environment that ostensibly draws on best practices? Drawing on data collected during an academic year, the author uses a telling case of a dyad engaged in on-line research and the creation of a PowerPoint presentation to illustrate how the students try to participate and complete the assignment but experience failure. The author raises questions about the context of the students' lives as well as the nature of the classroom instruction and assessment structure. It is argued that further research into the nature of participation is needed to address the lack of student success in urban schools.
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