Diagnosing Foreign Language Proficiency: The Interface Between Learning and Assessment

Yin, Muchun

doi:10.1080/15434300701595637

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“…One difficulty with validating diagnostic tests is that subconstructs are often tested with only a small number of items (Jang, 2009;Yin, 2008). In the OEAS Grammar Test, for example, each grammar structure category was tested with only four items.…”

Section: Evaluation Of Usefulness As Evidence For Validitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Scratching Where They Itch: Evaluation of Feedback on a Diagnostic English Grammar Test for Taiwanese University Students

Yin

Sims

Cothran

2012

Language Assessment Quarterly

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Feedback to the test taker is a defining characteristic of diagnostic language testing (Alderson, 2005). This article reports on a study that investigated how much and in what ways students at a Taiwan university perceived the feedback to be useful on an online multiple-choice diagnostic English grammar test, both in general and by students of higher and lower language proficiency. Stage 1 involved questionnaire data from 68 students who rated each item's feedback according to usefulness, and Stage 2 involved interviews with five students as they read the feedback after taking the test. The data from these two stages showed students' overall positive attitude toward the feedback and students' preferences for particular feedback characteristics. The study also found that although higher proficiency test takers found the feedback to be more useful than lower proficiency test-takers, views about the characteristics of good feedback were similar regardless of level. Recommendations for improving diagnostic language test construction and validation are discussed based upon the findings. BACKGROUNDDiagnostic language testing, which aims to identify test takers' linguistic strengths and weaknesses so as to guide their learning, has received increasing attention after long neglect, as researchers have sought ways to make language assessments more oriented towards learning

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Section: Evaluation Of Usefulness As Evidence For Validitymentioning

confidence: 99%