Slobodanka Dimova is an associate professor in Language Testing and the coordinator of the Test of Oral English Proficiency for Academic Staff (TOEPAS) at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She currently serves as the book review editor for the journal Language Testing, a member of the Executive Committee of the European Association of Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA), and the Chair of the Danish Network for Language Testing and Assessment (DASTEN). She has also been a language testing consultant for the Danish Ministry of Education regarding the foreign language tests administered at the end of obligatory education. Her current research interests include rater training and rater behavior for oral proficiency tests, the development and validation of scales for performance-based tests, the use of technology in language testing and assessment, and the policies and practices related to the implementation of English-medium instruction (EMI) programs at non-Anglophone universities.

Xun Yan is an assistant professor of Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education (SLATE) and Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). At UIUC, he also supervises the university-level English Placement Test (EPT), designed to assess international students' writing and speaking skills. His research interests include speaking and writing assessment, scale development and validation, psycholinguistic approaches to language testing, rater behavior and cognition, and language assessment literacy. His work has been published in Language Testing, Assessing Writing, TESOL Quarterly, and Journal of Second Language Writing.

April Ginther is a professor of English at Purdue University and teaches graduate classes in language testing and quantitative research. During her tenure at Purdue, she has advised more than 20 graduate student dissertations. She is also the director of Purdue's two primary English language support programs: The Oral English Proficiency Program, the support program for international teaching assistants, and The Purdue Language and Cultural Exchange, the support program for incoming international undergraduate students. As director of both programs, she is responsible for the development, maintenance, and administration of the local tests used to evaluate the English language skills of 1,000 incoming students each academic year. She is a founding member of MwALT, the Midwest Association of Language Testers, and is a well-respected member of the international language testing community. She served as the co-editor of the journal Language Testing from 2012 to 2017.

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Introduction

Why local tests?

Introduction

Our tests

Contexts and problem solving

Large-scale language tests and academic language testing

Organization of the rest of this volume

Further reading

References

Chapter 2: Local tests, local contexts

Introduction

Local contexts and test purpose - decisions about test-takers

Linking test purpose to instructional outcomes

Further reading

References

Chapter 3: Local test development

Introduction

Planning test development

Test design

Technical manuals

Summary

Further reading

References

Chapter 4: Test tasks

Introduction

Discrete-point lexico-grammar items

Integrative measures of general language ability

Skill-based performance assessments

Summary

Further reading

References

Chapter 5: Local test delivery

Introduction

Digital devices

Production of traditional and digitally delivered tests: what does it take?

Opportunities for innovative task design

Test administration

Selection of test delivery format: what to consider

Summary

Further reading

References

Chapter 6: Scaling

Introduction

Why do we need a rating scale?

Different types of rating scales

Approaches to scale development and validation

Issues to consider during scale validation

Unique challenges and opportunities for scaling in local testing contexts

Summary

Further reading

References

Chapter 7: Raters and rater training

Introduction

The promise and perils of rater-mediated language assessment

Rater behavior: a catalog of rater effects

Why do we need rater training? Does it really work?

Best practice for rater training

Summary

Further reading

References

Chapter 8: Data collection, management, and score reporting

Introduction

Data flow

Data storage

Data management

Data uses

Summary

Further reading

References

Chapter 9: Reflections

Introduction

Some reflections on the revision of the TOEPAS

Some reflections on the EPT scale revision process

Some reflections on the development of the OEPT

Conclusions

References

Appendix A

Index