Test preparation has garnered considerable attention in second language (L2) education due to the significant implications that successful performance on a language test may have for academic advancement, future career opportunities, and immigration prospects. Meanwhile, an overemphasis on test preparation has been criticized for encouraging the…

Several high-stakes English proficiency tests including but not limited to IELTS, PTE Academic, and TOEFL iBT recommend a 2-year time limit on validity for score usage. Although this timeframe provides a useful rule-of-thumb for the recency of testing, it can have far-reaching consequences. In response to stakeholder queries around IELTS validity…

The growing diversity among test takers in second or foreign language (L2) assessments makes the importance of fairness front and center. This systematic review aimed to examine how fairness in L2 assessments was evaluated through differential item functioning (DIF) analysis. A total of 83 articles from 27 journals were included in a systematic…

This experimental study explores how source use features impact raters' judgment of argumentation in a second language (L2) integrated writing test. One hundred four experienced and novice raters were recruited to complete a rating task that simulated the scoring assignment of a local English Placement Test (EPT). Sixty written responses were…

Comparative Judgement (CJ) is an evaluation method, typically conducted online, whereby a rank order is constructed, and scores calculated, from judges' pairwise comparisons of performances. CJ has been researched in various educational contexts, though only rarely in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing settings, and is generally agreed to…

The current study examined the extent to which first language (L1) utterance fluency measures can predict second language (L2) fluency and how L2 proficiency moderates the relationship between L1 and L2 fluency. A total of 104 Japanese-speaking learners of English completed different argumentative speech tasks in their L1 and L2. Their speaking…