Predictability of IELTS in a high-stakes context: a mixed methods study of Chinese students’ perspectives on test preparation

High-stakes language tests are used around the world as a gatekeeping tool under the internationalization of higher education. However, the predictable aspect of the high-stakes language tests is seldom discussed, especially from students’ perspectives. This study aims to address this gap by aiming to better understand how certain factors and conditions contribute to the predictability issue of IELTS from students’ perspectives within a high-stakes context. This study used a mixed method approach to investigate the views and experiences of students within a Sino-UK joint college. The data collection was in two concurrent strands: online survey and group interviews. Findings suggested that IELTS can impact students negatively by narrowing their English learning scope, driving them into self-isolated way of study, doing repeated test-taking and buying predicted answers. Implications related to language test preparation are discussed in light of the findings.

Construct in Assessments of Signed Language

Descriptions of test constructs in second signed language assessment, such as vocabulary knowledge, are rare and far from receiving the attention by the field of signed language test research that they deserves. Detailing the construct in second signed language assessment poses a challenge for obvious reasons: only very few published studies on signed language tests for adult learners are available, and none of them focuses on construct-related issues. Equally, there is a shortage of operationally used test instruments accessible for review. In this chapter, published studies on second signed language assessment will be reviewed, focusing specifically on construct representation; tests that are used for hiring and promotion are discussed and an example of how to define the construct for a signed language test is discussed.

Modern principles of developing the subtest “Reading and Use of Language” of the TORFL-II

The article is devoted to the topical problem of modern principles of developing tests of Russian as a foreign language (RFL), taking into account the world experience. The purpose of the article is to summarize the modern principles of language test development and to show how they are implemented in the new tests of Russian as a foreign language. The materials of the article include the research papers of Russian and foreign authors in the sphere of methodology over the past 20 years, as well as modern formats of testing in foreign languages. At the first stage of the study, general scientific methods of generalization, systematization and structuring were used. At the second phase, a new format of the RFL test Reading and Use of Language (B2) was modelled, combining language and communication competence testing. At the third stage, an experiment was conducted to test the new format. 48 foreign master students studying the program Russian Language and Russian Culture in the Aspect of Russian as a Foreign Language in Saint Petersburg State University took part in the experiment. It was concluded that the modern language test, in accordance with the basic cognitive and communicative principle of learning and control, should be based on the following principles: testing skills in different types of speech activities mainly on the text material; interdependence between the type of the task and the speech genre of the text being created/used in the task; basing on a linguistic and didactic description of the communicative competence level; integrative approach; using different types of test tasks within one subtest; the principle of increasing complexity of tasks; taking into account the complexity of each task in its assessment; task feasibility according to students educational level; taking into account the values of the multicultural world; taking into account international experience; basing on reliability and validity criteria of test tasks. These principles implemented in the new TORFL-II subtest format Reading and Use of Language are presented in the article. The implementation of modern test principles should ensure that all speech control facilities are systematically allocated to the appropriate level and parameters for their assessment. The above-mentioned principles of test creation and the example of their implementation can be taken as the basis of a full-fledged system of control and measurement materials based on linguistic and didactical descriptions of each level.

Validating Listening Strategies Using Ordinal Response Models

<p>This thesis illustrates statistical methodology for identifying the effects of explanatory variables, for the response variables with an ordinal nature. The dataset applied to this methodology is a Listening Strategy dataset collected by The Language Learner Strategy Team at the National Institute of Education from Singapore. In this dataset, eight strategies were formed from 38 questions based on Linguistic theory. The core objective of this thesis is to validate whether 38 questions were aggregated appropriately. We use the proportional odds model, which is the most popular for ordinal responses, and the generalised estimating equations (GEE) method to analyse repeated measurements. Although there are several ways to analyse repeated categorical responses, this thesis only demonstrates the marginal approach using the GEE method. By fitting proportional odds models, we evaluate whether student’s English Language test result associated with the questions are at the same level within each strategy. Results show that the English Language test result effects for the questions associated with Self-initiation, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating, Prediction and Utilisation strategies are similar. On the other hand, the effects for the questions associated with Perceptual processing, Inferencing and Socio-affective strategies are significantly different. We also use a simulation study to show that when the ordinal response is treated as continuous, ordinary least square regression might have misleading results.</p>

Validating Listening Strategies Using Ordinal Response Models

<p>This thesis illustrates statistical methodology for identifying the effects of explanatory variables, for the response variables with an ordinal nature. The dataset applied to this methodology is a Listening Strategy dataset collected by The Language Learner Strategy Team at the National Institute of Education from Singapore. In this dataset, eight strategies were formed from 38 questions based on Linguistic theory. The core objective of this thesis is to validate whether 38 questions were aggregated appropriately. We use the proportional odds model, which is the most popular for ordinal responses, and the generalised estimating equations (GEE) method to analyse repeated measurements. Although there are several ways to analyse repeated categorical responses, this thesis only demonstrates the marginal approach using the GEE method. By fitting proportional odds models, we evaluate whether student’s English Language test result associated with the questions are at the same level within each strategy. Results show that the English Language test result effects for the questions associated with Self-initiation, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating, Prediction and Utilisation strategies are similar. On the other hand, the effects for the questions associated with Perceptual processing, Inferencing and Socio-affective strategies are significantly different. We also use a simulation study to show that when the ordinal response is treated as continuous, ordinary least square regression might have misleading results.</p>

Augmenting State Capacity for Child Development: Experimental Evidence from India

We use a large-scale randomized experiment to study the impact of augmenting staffing in the world’s largest public early childhood program: India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). Adding a half-time worker doubled net preschool instructional time and led to 0.29σ and 0.46σ increases in math and language test scores after 18 months for children who remained enrolled in the program. Rates of stunting and severe malnutrition were also lower in the treatment group. A cost-benefit analysis suggests that the benefits of augmenting ICDS staffing are likely to significantly exceed its costs even under conservative assumptions.

The Impact of the Age at the Cochlear Implantation on the Pragmatic Development of the Prelingual Hearing Impaired Egyptian Arabic Speaking Children

Background Hearing impaired children have delayed development of pragmatic skills as hearing impairment (HI) deprives them from exposure to natural communication interactions. The rehabilitation of children with HI aims to improve their listening skills for better language development and better communication and social interactions. Aim of this work to compare the pragmatic language development of the prelingual hearing impaired children who were cochlearly implanted before the age of 3 years and those who were cochlearly implanted after the age of 3 years. Methods Sixty Egyptian Arabic-speaking children with prelingual severe to profound sensory neural hearing loss, thirty children who were cochlearly implanted before the age of 3.0 years compared to thirty children who were cochlearly implanted after the age of 3.0 years. Language assessment was done by Modified Preschool Language Scale – 4th edition (PLS–4), the Arabic version and pragmatic development was assessed by Standardized Egyptian Arabic Pragmatic Language Test (EAPLT). Results The two study groups showed no significant differences regarding the receptive, expressive, and total language test scores by PLS-4. Group I showed a significant difference (improvement) regarding the pragmatic factors while there were no significant differences between the two study groups regarding the rest of the pragmatics scores by EAPLT. Conclusion The pragmatic language of cochlearly implanted children either who have been implanted before or after 3 years old is affected. This higher susceptibility to pragmatic impairment in prelingual cochlearly implanted children, as well as the importance of pragmatic skills for further social-communicative and academic careers, should be considered in their rehabilitative plan and advocate the importance for early incorporation of pragmatic behaviors into their intervention programs.

Effects of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome and Medical Comorbidities on Language Abilities

Objective: The primary objective of the present cross-sectional study is to evaluate the semantic language abilities of patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) compared to normative data. Secondary objectives are to examine the effects of OSAS comorbidities on language test performance.Method: 118 adult patients suffering from OSAS were assessed using standardized tests (Boston Naming Test, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Verbal Fluency Test).Results: Compared to normative standards, the OSAS group (age and education adjusted mean) scored significantly lower on all tests (p &lt; 0.01). The OSAS group also included a significantly higher percentage of persons scoring below the 5th percentile of the normative distribution on the four tests (p &lt; 0.01). The Apnea/Hypopnea Index, O2 Desaturation index, SaO2 &lt;85% (min) and SaO2 &lt;75% (min) were significantly associated with language test scores (p &lt; 0.05). Moreover, higher Apnea–Hypopnea Index score and night-time oxygen desaturation were associated with reduced phonemic and semantic fluency performance only among patients with a history of hypertension and hypercholesterolemia (p &lt; 0.05). The moderating effect of diabetes and cardiovascular disease on the association between OSAS severity indices and test scores did not reach significance (p &gt; 0.6).Conclusions: Results suggest that the severity of semantic language impairments in patients with OSAS is associated with the severity of the disease and intensified by common medical comorbidities (hypertension and hypercholesterolemia).

Spanish Version of the Mini-Linguistic State Examination for the Diagnosis of Primary Progressive Aphasia

Background: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative syndrome with three main clinical variants: non-fluent, semantic, and logopenic. Clinical diagnosis and accurate classification are challenging and often time-consuming. The Mini-Linguistic State Examination (MLSE) has been recently developed as a short language test to specifically assess language in neurodegenerative disorders. Objective: Our aim was to adapt and validate the Spanish version of MLSE for PPA diagnosis. Methods: Cross-sectional study involving 70 patients with PPA and 42 healthy controls evaluated with the MLSE. Patients were independently diagnosed and classified according to comprehensive cognitive evaluation and advanced neuroimaging. Results: Internal consistency was 0.758. The influence of age and education was very low. The area under the curve for discriminating PPA patients and healthy controls was 0.99. Effect sizes were moderate-large for the discrimination between PPA and healthy controls. Motor speech, phonology, and semantic subscores discriminated between the three clinical variants. A random forest classification model obtained an F1-score of 81%for the three PPA variants. Conclusion: Our study provides a brief and useful language test for PPA diagnosis, with excellent properties for both clinical routine assessment and research purposes.