Dr. Steven Ross, Professor, School of Policy Studies, Kwansei Gakuin, Kobe
3 Credits - open to all groups / Applied Linguistics (IIIB) /Group 17 – III.
Letter Grade (P/F option)

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to essential concepts and principles of second/foreign language assessment. The course will help students to develop expertise in crafting and evaluating tests and assessments for classroom achievement, placement, diagnosis, mastery, dynamic and proficiency assessment purposes. It will introduce students to test development software for the design and analysis of language tests, as well as hands-on experience with new technology for computer based, and adaptive testing. Students will also have the opportunity to examine the inter-subjective processes of interaction through oral proficiency interviewing techniques.

COURSE GOALS

By the end of the course, the students are expected to have a sound knowledge of:

1. Test Functions: achievement, proficiency, placement, and standard setting
2. Test Goals: norm-referenced and criterion-referencing test concepts.
3. Item Characteristics: item facility, item discrimination, distractor analysis
4. Test Characteristics: reliability, dependability, validity, practicality
5. Test Design: planning, writing, administering, scoring
6. Test Analysis Statistics: means, variance, correlation, measures of ability, difficulty, judge severity
7. Computerized Testing , Computer based tests, computer adaptive tests, item banking

METHODOLOGY

1. Reading from the core texts, supplemented by class discussion.
2. Analysis of test specimens.
3. Use of on-site statistical software for analysis of test data.
4. Use of on-site software for test development

ASSESSMENT

Class participation 20%
Test specimen analysis 20%
Take-Home Review 30%
Test Development Project 30%

BOOKS TO BUY

• Lynch, B., (2003). Language assessment and program evaluation. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
• Bond, T. & Fox, C., (1996). Applying the Rasch Model. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

BIO

Steven Ross obtained his Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition from the University of Hawaii at Manoa), and is currently professor of linguistics at the School of Policy Studies, Kwansei Gakuin in Kobe-Sanda, Hyogo. He has taught research methodology and language assessment courses in Japan (Temple, Kwansei Universities and Teachers College), the USA (Hawaii, Hawaii Pacific Universities), and Australia (Macquarie University). Areas of recent research include language assessment, gender bias on language tests, computerized testing, benchmarking, standard setting, and language program evaluation. He has recently served on the editorial boards of the TESOL Quarterly and Language Testing. Dr. Ross is currently involved in benchmarking and standard setting projects related to the Certificate in Spoken and Written English for the Australian Adult Migrant English Program, and also serves as a research consultant for the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) in Japan. His research articles have appeared in the JALT Journal, System, RELC Journal, IRAL, TESOL Quarterly, Second Language Research, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Prospect, Language Learning, Language Testing, and Applied Linguistics, as well as in a number of edited books on second language acquisition, discourse analysis, and language testing.