Since the Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) was designed to assess skill differences among test-takers at all points along the ability continuum, rather than to determine cutoff scores, it is important to examine the extent to which the instrument assesses what it is intended to measure (validity) as well as the extent to which the test is consistent (reliability) in measuring ELL...

Utilizing invisible 2-dimensional codes and digital audio players with 2-dimensional code scanner, two types of new auditory testing media were developed in our previous works. This paper presents the result of experimental evaluation of the new testing media. The result shows that, in addition to existing special arrangements such as large-print-format test and braille-format test, the introdu...

Although most researchers have recently considered the role of test-taking strategies as one of the most vital factors in test taking process, it has been ignored by most EFL teachers in educational and academic settings including Iran. Because of the importance of test-taking strategies in EFL learners’ performance in tests, this research was set out to examine what strategies Iranian EFL test...

Welcome to issue 49 of Research Notes, our quarterly publication reporting on matters relating to research, test development and validation within University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations (Cambridge ESOL). The theme of this issue is performance testing, largely focusing on written assessment. In the fi rst article, Helen Spillett outlines the revision of the Cambridge English: Profi ciency (CP...

The educators have underlined the importance of lecture attendance for decades. Nowadays, students have ample online educational sources, which began a debate on the necessity of in-class lectures. In the present study, we investigated the influence of lecture attendance on the exam success. To this aim, we adopted a novel approach and matched second-year medicine students' answers in three int...

The generalizability aspect of Construct validity, as proposed by Messick (1989), requires that a test measures the same trait across different samples from the same population. Differential Item functioning (DIF) analysis is a key component in the fairness evaluation of educational tests. University entrance exam for the candidates who seek admission into master's English programs (MEUEE) at I...

Taking multiple-choice practice tests with competitive incorrect alternatives can enhance performance on related but different questions appearing on a later cued-recall test (Little et al., Psychol Sci 23:1337-1344, 2012). This benefit of multiple-choice testing, which does not occur when the practice test is a cued-recall test, appears attributable to participants attempting to retrieve not o...

Validation is an important enterprise especially when a test is a high stakes one. Demographic variables like gender and field of study can affect test results and interpretations. Differential Item Functioning (DIF) is a way to make sure that a test does not favor one group of test takers over the others. This study investigated DIF in terms of gender in the reading comprehension subtest (35 i...

Globalization has made English more important than ever. Through time, curriculum designers and teacher practitioners remain steadfast in finding ways to advance the quality of student learning. To ascertain language teaching learning, parameters like standardized tests are set. This paper examined, at cross-country level, difference between 2009 2013 Test as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) iBT scor...