The Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) has recently moved from norm-referenced to standards-referenced assessment, including the incorporation of a substantial school-based summative oral assessment component into the compulsory English language subject in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE). Starting in…

Assessment has been at centre stage of educational reform in England and Wales in the past 15 years. This article argues that official educational assessment policy is essentially indifferent to the technical, pedagogic, and epistemological issues related to different forms of assessment. Policymakers are primarily concerned with "delivering"…

In the past, English as Second Language (ESL) teachers in Australia have been given a strong professional role in classroom assessment. This role still exists but has changed in ways that are causing some tensions for teachers in their day-to-day practice. In schools, educational reform has been accompanied by mother-tongue/English-learner-based…

Grading, feedback, and reporting of student achievement are key elements that support learning. This article reports an interview study on a range of English as a Second or Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) teachers' classroom assessment practices at the tertiary level in Canada, Hong Kong, and China. The interviews focused on teachers' use of marking…

This article reviews research on differential item functioning (DIF) in language testing conducted primarily between 1990 and 2005 with an eye toward providing methodological guidelines for developing, conducting, and disseminating research in this area. The article contains a synthesis of 27 studies with respect to five essential sets of…

When testing English language learners (ELLs) in subject matter areas, construct irrelevant variance could result from English, the language in which the test is presented. Differential item functioning (DIF) techniques have been used to determine if items are operating differently for population subgroups and might therefore be appropriate for…

This study investigates differential item functioning (DIF) in a 36-item test of English as a Second Language pragmalinguistics, assessing 254 learners' knowledge of implicature, routines, and speech acts. Two common DIF techniques, the Mantel-Haenszel method and the standardization method, detected nine items functioning differentially for test…

When standardized English-language tests are administered to test takers worldwide, the test-taking population could be varied on a number of personal and educational characteristics such as age, gender, first language, and academic discipline. As test tasks and test items may not always be prepared keeping this diversity of characteristics in…

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the state of the theorizing and praxis of DIF in general: where it has been; where it is now; and where I think it is, and should, be going. Along the way the major trends in the differential item functioning (DIF) literature are summarized and integrated providing some organizing principles that allow…

From June to November 2003 an exploratory survey was made of the assessment of written English in a small sample of English language degrees in Europe. All programmes had similar components, the study of English language and literature, cultural or area studies, and English language development. Some involved the study of another language.…

Dynamic assessment (DA), as a pro-learning form of assessment, has been discussed in the educational literature for three decades or more. As a concept it has yet to be picked up in any significant way by the more established second language testing/assessment literature published in the English language. There is, however, every reason to believe…

This article follows the development of test items (see "Language Assessment Quarterly", Volume 3 Issue 1, pp. 71-79 for the article "Test and Item Specifications Development"), beginning with a review of test and item specifications, then proceeding to writing and editing of items, pretesting and analysis, and finally selection of an item for a…

Although the primary use of the speaking section of the Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-based test (TOEFL[R] iBT Speaking) is to inform admissions decisions at English medium universities, it may also be useful as an initial screening measure for international teaching assistants (ITAs). This study provides criterion-related…

Licensure testing programs in the United States (e.g., nursing) face an increasing challenge of measuring the competency of internationally trained candidates, both in relation to their clinical competence and their English language competence. To assist with the latter, professional licensing bodies often adopt well-established and widely…

The Multimedia Assisted Test of English Speaking was designed to assess global speaking competence of Korean speakers of English at Sookmyung Women's University. The test was developed with the help of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages for their proficiency guidelines and of the Center for Applied Linguistics for their…