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.
Descriptors: Test Validity, Test Use, Test Construction, Language Tests, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Classification, Foreign Countries, Students, Language Teachers, Testing, Scoring, Reading Tests
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