According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), US reading and math scores have recently dropped. This decline is believed to be the result of the school closings that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The drop likely contributed to the increase in pressure educators are feeling to teach in a way that leads to higher test…

The Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE-A), a widely used high-stakes language proficiency test for university admissions and migration purposes, underwent a notable change from a three-hour to a two-hour version in November 2021. The implementation of the new version has prompted inquiries into the washback effects on various stakeholders.…

The teaching of English as a foreign language in Indonesia has a long history, and it is always important to ask whether the assessment of the students' language skills has been valid and reliable. A screening of many articles in several prominent databases reveal that a number of evaluation studies have been done by Indonesian scholars in the…

Traditional methods for detecting cheating on assessments tend to focus on either identifying cheaters or compromised items in isolation, overlooking their interconnection. In this study, we present a novel biclustering approach that simultaneously detects both cheaters and compromised items by identifying coherent subgroups of examinees and items…

International large-scale assessments provide cross-national data on students' cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics. A critical methodological issue that often arises in comparing data from cross-national studies is ensuring measurement invariance, indicating that the construct under investigation is the same across the compared groups.…

Washback refers to the impact of a test on instruction and learning, with high-stakes tests exerting both positive and negative effects. This study examined the washback of an English exit exam (EEE) on English language learning at a Thai university where English-medium instruction is used in most academic disciplines. The EEE is an in-house…

The use of multistage adaptive testing (MST) has gradually increased in large-scale testing programs as MST achieves a balanced compromise between linear test design and item-level adaptive testing. MST works on the premise that each examinee gives their best effort when attempting the items, and their responses truly reflect what they know or can…

The Korean College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) aims to assess Korean high school students' scholastic ability required for college readiness. As a high-stakes test, the examination serves as a pivotal hurdle for university admission and exerts a strong washback effect on the educational system in Korea. The present study set out to investigate…

This study employed a multi-methods design to investigate the impact of preparation on Chinese test-takers' perceptions of the integrated TOEFL iBT speaking and writing design. Combining results from over 1700 surveys and 10 interviews, it was found that these Chinese test-takers, who are the most vulnerable group in the multimillion testing…

This paper employs a Critical Cultural Political Economy of Education perspective to examine how, why, and to what effect the English proficiency rankings of a for-profit edu-business acquire the authority often granted to international large-scale assessments. Analysing the EF English Proficiency Index in the context of Ecuador illustrates how…

Research on Portuguese language exams in the language assessment field remains scarce. To bridge this gap, this study examined washback from the large-scale, high-stakes Portuguese proficiency tests created by the Center of Evaluation of Portuguese as a Foreign Language ("Centro de Avaliação de Português Língua Estrangeira," or CAPLE as…

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by Section 3113 of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), requires state educational agencies (SEAs) to establish and implement standardized, statewide entrance and exit procedures for English learners (ELs). WIDA provides the English language proficiency placement and annual…

Studies on washback of not only international standardized proficiency tests, but also localized high-stakes tests have been increasingly attracting considerable interest. The current study explores the washback effects of a Vietnam-made localized English proficiency test named "Vietnamese Standardized Test of English Proficiency, level…

Researchers across many fields have called for greater attention to heterogeneity of treatment effects--shifting focus from the average effect to variation in effects between different treatments, studies, or subgroups. True heterogeneity is important, but many reports of heterogeneity have proved to be false, non-replicable, or exaggerated. In…

Teaching is a stressful profession with a high turnover rate. Schools and related institutions need to take more action to support teachers and keep teacher stress at a manageable level. The continued research and practical effort require measures to examine teachers' stress in a briefer and accurate manner. The Teacher Stress Scale is a recently…