Technology in assessment

Printed in the United Kingdom by Océ (UK) Ltd. ©UCLES 2011 – The contents of this publication may not be reproduced without the written permission of the copyright holder. Welcome to issue 43 of Research Notes, our quarterly publication reporting on matters relating to research, test development and validation within Cambridge ESOL. The use of technology in language testing dates back to 1985 when the Language Testing Research Colloquium (LTRC) chose this theme for its annual conference. The very first Research Notes issue, published in 2000, contained an article on the use of computers in the Local Item Banking System at Cambridge ESOL. The theme of the use of technology was continued in issues 12 (2003) and 23 (2006) which addressed the relationship between technology and language assessment within Cambridge ESOL examinations. This issue of Research Notes is dedicated to the latest developments in technology harnessed for the purposes of language assessment at Cambridge ESOL. The opening article by Sharon Jordan, Glyn Hughes and Cris Betts provides a broad overview of the use of information technology at Cambridge ESOL, discussing the associated benefits, issues and practices. The following three papers discuss the technological systems which support and facilitate the work of the external professionals who work on Cambridge ESOL examinations. Chris Hubbard outlines the development and impact of the Cambridge ESOL Professional Support Network (PSN), currently used for the coordination and standardisation of Speaking Examiners. Juliet Wilson and Murat Velioglu's article on Connect, a system through which computer-based tests are run, shares with us the benefits of the system from the perspective of test centres. Margaret Cooze's article on scoris ® discusses the advantages of onscreen marking as well as the issues considered and addressed. The remaining papers are concerned with validation activities of computer-based (CB) and computer-adaptive tests from a variety of perspectives. Picking up a thread from Cooze's paper, Ardeshir Geranpayeh investigates onscreen marking via scoris ® from a different angle, examining the comparability between onscreen and paper-based marking. Lucy Chambers and Kate Ingham outline the aspects of development of the BULATS Online Speaking Test, focussing on a proof-of-concept trial and alignment to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Following that, Lucy Chambers investigates the composition and revision strategies of a cohort of candidates who took the Business English Certificate (BEC) Vantage Test of Writing in the CB mode. Using an innovative method of data collection – …