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ERIC Number: EJ1193709
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Oct
Pages: 25
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0265-5322
EISSN: N/A
Screener Tests Need Validation Too: Weighing an Argument for Test Use against Practical Concerns
Schmidgall, Jonathan E.; Getman, Edward P.; Zu, Jiyun
Language Testing, v35 n4 p583-607 Oct 2018
In this study, we define the term "screener test," elaborate key considerations in test design, and describe how to incorporate the concepts of practicality and argument-based validation to drive an evaluation of screener tests for language assessment. A screener test is defined as a brief assessment designed to identify an examinee as a member of a particular population or subpopulation. Consequently, its focus of measurement is to provide information that distinguishes the targeted subpopulations. Although the trade-off between measurement quality and practicality is an important consideration for any assessment (Bachman & Palmer, 1996), practicality is a particularly critical feature of low-stakes screener tests in language assessment given their use in routing examinees to other assessments, rather than serving as the basis for higher-stakes decision making. In order to demonstrate how an evaluation may be applied to a screener test, we describe the development and evaluation of a proposed screener test for the TOEFL Primary Reading test. The claims articulated through the development process and evidence collected throughout development and pilot testing enable a wide-ranging, comparative evaluation of five- and 10-item TOEFL Primary Reading screener tests that systematically incorporate the concepts of measurement quality, impact, and practicality.
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research; Tests/Questionnaires
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Brazil; China; Japan; Kenya
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Test of English as a Foreign Language
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A