In this research report, we describe a study to map the scores of the "TOEFL® Essentials"™ test to the Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB). The TOEFL Essentials test is a four-skills assessment of foundational English language skills and communication abilities in academic and general (daily life) contexts. At the time of writing this…

The redesigned "TOEIC Bridge"® tests are designed to measure the reading, listening, speaking, and writing proficiency of beginning to low-intermediate English learners in the context of everyday adult life. This report describes the comprehensive and multifaceted process used to enhance the meaningfulness of TOEIC Bridge test score…

Standard setting theory has largely developed with reference to a typical situation, determining a level or levels of performance for one exam for one context. However, standard setting is now being used with international reference frameworks, where some parameters and assumptions of classical standard setting do not hold. We consider the…

Considerable research about standard setting has revolved around a U.S.-centric policy context. That is, over the past decade, conclusions about thought processes and the interaction of education policy and panelists' judgments have been based on assumptions of comparable policy settings. However, whether these assumptions generalize to other…

The Arizona English Language Learners Assessment (AZELLA) is used by the Arizona Department of Education to determine which children should receive English support services. AZELLA results are used to determine if children are either proficient in English or have English language skills in one of four pre-proficient categories (pre-emergent,…

This article reports on two related studies carried out to link the State examination of Dutch as a second language to the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR). In the first study, key persons from institutions for higher education were asked to determine the minimally required language level of beginning students. In the…

In 1991 the Measurement and Evaluation Center of the University of Texas at Austin was asked to develop a test for credit by examination in four lower division courses in Japanese. The test (in Japanese) was constructed from locally developed items provided by instructors of Japanese. The developed test consisted of 80 items distributed among…