Application of Differentiated Instruction on Japanese Language Proficiency Test to Build Students’ Awareness of Lifelong Learning

Along with the rapid development of technology and the occurrence of education 4.0, lifelong learning ability becomes an important element in 21st century learning. Lifelong learning ability consists of the ability to develop strategies and evaluate one’s own learning, to improve knowledge, skills, and competence, so that continuous and sustainability learning habit can be built. By applying lifelong learning, students can evaluate their own learning, recognize their weaknesses and strengths, so that they can design the right learning model for the development of their knowledge. The ability to do lifelong learning is very important to be mastered by a student, so the teacher should introduce this learning model to student. On the other hand, as teacher we also conduct classroom / group learning that the differences in student’s ability may vary in one class. It needs to be facilitated by designing student personal learning (Differentiated Instruction / DI) to maximize student outcome. This paper discusses how DI strategies that implemented in Japanese Language Proficiency Test: Intermediate Level (Noryoku Shiken III) courses can build student awareness of lifelong learning. The participant of this research is the student from Japanese Language Proficiency Test: Intermediate Level (Noryoku Shiken III) class in Japanese Department, in a private university in Jakarta. The result of this research is after applying DI, a good progress was seen in each student towards the achievement of JLPT N3 grades, and can create independent learning habits, so students can sustain this learning habits even after finishing this subject.

EVALUASI DAN TES BAHASA ARAB: Tinjauan Teori Arabic Proficiency Test

Evaluasi pendidikan merupakan aspek yangpenting, karena dengan evaluasi pendidikan dapat diketahui sejauh mana proses pendidikan telahtercapai, juga dapat menentukan langkah selanjutnya mengenai apa yang hendak dilakukan. Artikel inimenjelaskan tentang 1) Evaluasi, Asesmen, Pengukuran dan Tes, 2) Tujuan dan Fungsi Evaluasi, 3)Prinsip-Prinsip Evaluasi, 4) macam-macam evaluasi dan 5) tes Bahasa Arab secara teoritis

Remote versus on-site proctored exam: comparing student results in a cross-sectional study

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected assessment practices in medical education necessitating distancing from the traditional classroom. However, safeguarding academic integrity is of particular importance for high-stakes medical exams. We utilised remote proctoring to administer safely and reliably a proficiency-test for admission to the Advanced Master of General Practice (AMGP). We compared exam results of the remote proctored exam group to those of the on-site proctored exam group. Methods A cross-sectional design was adopted with candidates applying for admission to the AMGP. We developed and applied a proctoring software operating on three levels to register suspicious events: recording actions, analysing behaviour, and live supervision. We performed a Mann-Whitney U test to compare exam results from the remote proctored to the on-site proctored group. To get more insight into candidates’ perceptions about proctoring, a post-test questionnaire was administered. An exploratory factor analysis was performed to explore quantitative data, while qualitative data were thematically analysed. Results In total, 472 (79%) candidates took the proficiency-test using the proctoring software, while 121 (20%) were on-site with live supervision. The results indicated that the proctoring type does not influence exam results. Out of 472 candidates, 304 filled in the post-test questionnaire. Two factors were extracted from the analysis and identified as candidates’ appreciation of proctoring and as emotional distress because of proctoring. Four themes were identified in the thematic analysis providing more insight on candidates’ emotional well-being. Conclusions A comparison of exam results revealed that remote proctoring could be a viable solution for administering high-stakes medical exams. With regards to candidates’ educational experience, remote proctoring was met with mixed feelings. Potential privacy issues and increased test anxiety should be taken into consideration when choosing a proctoring protocol. Future research should explore generalizability of these results utilising other proctoring systems in medical education and in other educational settings.

Mapping IIUM Students’ English Language Writing Proficiency to CEFR

The goal of this research was to determine the English language writing skills of the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) graduating undergraduates based on two linguistic levels; the IIUM English Proficiency Test (EPT) and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), based on two descriptors: IIUM’s EPT descriptor, and CEFR’s ‘General linguistic range’ descriptor (Council of Europe, 2001, p 110). The EPT results show that the majority (48 %) of the English language writing skills of IIUM undergraduates were in Band 6, while Band 5.5, Band 5 and Band 4, respectively, ranked 31.3%, 4.9% and 0.4%. On the other hand, Band 8, Band 7 and Band 6.5 were attained by 0.2%, 2.4% and 12.2% of undergraduates. A significant proportion of IIUM undergraduates (46.3 %) were found to be at Level B2 + when assessed against the CEFR scale for the ‘General linguistic range.’ At the same time, 2.2%, 12.4%, 33.9 and 5.2% of students were at Level C2, C1, B2, B1 +, respectively. The results also showed that a mere 0.2% was at Level B1. This research also showed that despite some inaccuracies and improper uses, IIUM students could write effectively and understand and use reasonably complicated language, particularly in familiar situations. Based on the CEFR scale for ‘General linguistic range’, the results of this study show that IIUM graduating undergraduates could clearly articulate themselves in their writing.

Exploring the Shortcomings of the Iranian MSRT English Proficiency Test

The Iranian Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT) English Proficiency Test (EPT) has been in use since 1992. While the MSRT-EPT is generally claimed to be reliable, valid, and practical, it does not assess speaking and writing skills. In this exploratory study, a qualitative approach was used to examine the MSRT-EPT test-takers experiences and language education experts’ beliefs about the test as well as their congruence with each other through semi-structured telephone interviews. Convenience and purposive sampling procedures were used to select 15 participants. Inductive coding method was applied to determine invariant constituents. Then, the constituents were reduced to categories, and finally the categories were clustered into 11 themes. Dependability and validity of the study were established through triangulation, inter-coder agreement, and member checking technique. The problems associated with the MSRT-EPT and a lack of productive skills included a lack of correspondence between the test content and Ph.D. Candidates'' needs, negative washback effect, non-theory-based content, inappropriate listening conditions, and a lack of test items originality. On the other hand, the candidates’ and experts’ perspectives were highly congruent. In light of these findings, the importance of designing a more comprehensive test including all facets of the language proficiency construct was highlighted, and some suggestions were made for future research.

Diverse routes to expertise in facial recognition

Facial recognition errors jeopardize national security, criminal justice, public safety and civil rights. Here, we compare the most accurate humans and facial recognition technology in a detailed lab-based evaluation and international proficiency test for forensic scientists involving 27 forensic departments from 14 countries. We find striking cognitive and perceptual diversity between naturally skilled super-recognizers, trained forensic examiners and deep neural networks, despite them achieving equivalent accuracy. Clear differences emerged in super-recognizers’ and forensic examiners’ perceptual processing, errors, and response patterns: super-recognizers were fast, biased to respond ‘same person’ and misidentified people with extreme confidence, whereas forensic examiners were slow, unbiased and strategically avoided misidentification errors. Further, these human experts and algorithms disagreed on the similarity of faces, pointing to differences in their face representations. Our findings reveal there are multiple types of facial recognition expertise, some of which are better suited to particular real-world facial recognition roles than others.

Grade-Related Differential Item Functioning in General English Proficiency Test-Kids Listening

Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analysis is always an indispensable methodology for detecting item and test bias in the arena of language testing. This study investigated grade-related DIF in the General English Proficiency Test-Kids (GEPT-Kids) listening section. Quantitative data were test scores collected from 791 test takers (Grade 5 = 398; Grade 6 = 393) from eight Chinese-speaking cities, and qualitative data were expert judgments collected from two primary school English teachers in Guangdong province. Two R packages “difR” and “difNLR” were used to perform five types of DIF analysis (two-parameter item response theory [2PL IRT] based Lord’s chi-square and Raju’s area tests, Mantel-Haenszel [MH], logistic regression [LR], and nonlinear regression [NLR] DIF methods) on the test scores, which altogether identified 16 DIF items. ShinyItemAnalysis package was employed to draw item characteristic curves (ICCs) for the 16 items in RStudio, which presented four different types of DIF effect. Besides, two experts identified reasons or sources for the DIF effect of four items. The study, therefore, may shed some light on the sustainable development of test fairness in the field of language testing: methodologically, a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design was adopted to guide further test fairness research using flexible methods to achieve research purposes; practically, the result indicates that DIF analysis does not necessarily imply bias. Instead, it only serves as an alarm that calls test developers’ attention to further examine the appropriateness of test items.