The Redesigned TOEIC Bridge® Tests: Relations to Test‐Taker Perceptions of Proficiency in English

Abstract

The redesigned four‐skills TOEIC Bridge® tests were designed to measure the listening, reading, speaking, and writing proficiency of beginning to low–intermediate English learners in the context of everyday life. In this paper, I describe two studies that were conducted to investigate claims about the meaningfulness of redesigned TOEIC Bridge test scores by comparing them to self‐assessments of listening, reading, speaking, and writing proficiency. In Study 1, test takers who participated in the redesigned TOEIC Bridge field test in Japan and Taiwan completed an online self‐assessment survey of their speaking and writing proficiency. In Study 2, test takers who participated in pretesting for the redesigned TOEIC Bridge Listening and Reading test in Japan and Taiwan completed a paper‐based self‐assessment survey of their listening and reading proficiency. Both studies were designed with the same research questions in mind in order to evaluate claims about the meaning of redesigned TOEIC Bridge test scores and to enhance the interpretation of test scores by relating them to test takers' self‐assessed ability to perform a variety of related tasks. The results indicated that self‐assessments had medium correlations with redesigned TOEIC Bridge Listening test scores (r = .55), Reading test scores (r = .54), Speaking test scores (r = .51), and Writing test scores (r = .46). These results compare favorably with the results of similar studies of the relationship between test scores and self‐assessments of language proficiency and provide evidence to support claims about the meaningfulness of TOEIC Bridge test scores. In addition, the pattern of results across TOEIC Bridge test proficiency levels and can‐do statements taken from language proficiency standards suggests that the tests meaningfully differentiate test‐takers' proficiency levels, an important consideration of test design.

Making the Case for the Quality and Use of a New Language Proficiency Assessment: Validity Argument for the Redesigned TOEIC Bridge® Tests

“…For language skills that are not directly observable, such as listening and reading comprehension, language learners may be in a unique position to have insight into their competencies. Schmidgall (2020) conducted two research studies in which TOEIC Bridge test scores were compared to test takers' self‐evaluations of their ability to complete everyday listening, reading, speaking, or writing tasks in English and found that TOEIC Bridge Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing test scores were moderately correlated with self‐assessments ( r = .55, .54, .51, and .46, respectively). These results compare favorably with the results of similar studies of the relationship between self‐assessments and criterion measures; in a meta‐analysis that included 67 studies, Li and Zhang (2021) found that the overall correlation between self‐assessment and language performance was .466.…”