An analysis of TOEFL® Primary™ repeaters: How much score change occurs?

Abstract

In this study, we examined how much change in TOEFL® Primary™ listening and reading scores can be expected in relation to the time interval between test administrations. The test records of 5213 young learners of English (aged 8–13 years) in Japan and Turkey who repeated the tests were analyzed to examine test scores as a function of time interval. The effect of time on test scores was analyzed with a multilevel modeling approach, allowing both initial scores and rate of change among individual test takers to vary. In addition, we examined the effects of test-taker age and test-level difficulty on test scores. Separate analyses were conducted by country for ease of interpretation, as Japan and Turkey differ with respect to the number of hours of instruction that students receive and the English-learning goals in their respective curricula. Results showed a positive rate of change, indicating that test scores increase gradually over time. However, the rate of change differed between the two countries. Furthermore, repeaters’ test scores increased with their age and with the length of time between test administrations. Findings provide empirical evidence for schools to refer to when determining the timing of re-administration of the TOEFL Primary tests to their students.

Reflecting on assessing young foreign language learners

“…Longitudinal data have also arisen from international testing contexts, enabling us to examine empirically the development of young EFL learners’ English skills in different educational contexts. For example, an analysis of over 5,000 EFL test records from repeat test takers in Turkey and Japan—assessing the children’s reading, speaking, and listening skills—showed that, contrary to the commonly held view that children’s language development is faster than that of adults, young EFL learners’ test scores do not increase rapidly over a short period, although there was a great deal of variability at the individual student level (Cho & Blood, 2020). The same data also suggested the effects of educational contexts on the amount of score change.…”

Assessing young learners’ foreign language abilities

“…Over the years, research has been conducted for these assessments in order to support the validity of test scores and their uses. For instance, in the context of the TOEFL Primary tests, studies have investigated content representativeness of the tests (Hsieh, 2016), YLs’ perceptions of critical components of the assessment (Cho & So, 2014; Getman, Cho, & Luce, 2016), YLs’ test-taking strategies (Gu & So, 2017), the relationship between test performance and test taker characteristics (Lee & Winke, 2018), the use of the test for different purposes such as a measure of progress (Cho & Blood, in press), and standard-setting studies mapping scores to the CEFR levels (Papageorgiou & Baron, 2017).…”

Structure and Written Expressions of the TOEFL: Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Constraints

“…Unfortunately, there were few studies carried out to explore these constraints. Most studies investigated students' difficulties in answering the TOEFL test items in general (Cho & Blood, 2020;Ginther & Yan, 2018;Halim & Ardiningtyas, 2018;Staples et al, 2018;Syakur, 2019), or only in the Listening and Reading sections (Nazri et al, 2020;Samad et al, 2017;Silviyanti et al, 2020;Zalha et al, 2020). These studies confirmed that limited time, fewer basic skills, less practice, less motivation, and students' differences were the main factors affecting the difficulties in facing the TOEFL test.…”