The validity of written cloze tests for measuring oral skills was evaluated by comparing cloze test scores with recorded interviews. It was concluded that the tests may be a good indirect measure of oral ability. The advantages of these tests include ease of construction, administration, and scoring. (MSE)

The development, administration, and scoring of a communicative test and its validation with tests of linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in English and Spanish are reported. Correlation with measures of home language use and school achievement are also presented, and issues of test validation for bilingual programs are discussed. (MSE)

A theoretical framework that distinguishes the knowledge, or competence, aspect of language proficiency from the skills aspect is outlined, and the factors in the language testing situation that affect performance on language tests are examined. The model is intended for use in assessing the construct validity of tests of language proficiency and…

This study is an examination of the test results of 90 academically oriented adult participants on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the Canadian Language Benchmarks Assessment (CBLA), to determine the comparability of performance on the two tests and the possibility of using two tests in the academic admissions process for…

Examines the performance of ethnic minority students on Rubin's CCAI, with a view toward discovering potential cultural biases embedded in the instrument. Concludes that such biases appear to exist. (MS)

This paper examines the results of a questionnaire on reading ability in English by Japanese college students, which was formerly analyzed using raw scores, from the viewpoint of Rasch measured scores. In the Rasch analysis, the basic requirements for measuring are the following: (1) reduction of experience to one dimensional abstraction; (2)…

The selection of papers on language testing includes: "Language Testing in the 1990s: How Far Have We Come? How Much Further Have We To Go?" (J. Charles Alderson); "Current Research/Development in Language Testing" (John W. Oller, Jr.); "The Difficulties of Difficulty: Prompts in Writing Assessment" (Liz Hamp-Lyons,…