Measuring the development of general language skills in English as a foreign language—Longitudinal invariance of the C-test

IF 2.2 1区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Language Testing Pub Date : 2023-03-25 DOI:10.1177/02655322231159829

Birger Schnoor, J. Hartig, Thorsten Klinger, Alexander Naumann, I. Usanova

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Research on assessing English as a foreign language (EFL) development has been growing recently. However, empirical evidence from longitudinal analyses based on substantial samples is still needed. In such settings, tests for measuring language development must meet high standards of test quality such as validity, reliability, and objectivity, as well as allow for valid interpretations of change scores, requiring longitudinal measurement invariance. The current study has a methodological focus and aims to examine the measurement invariance of a C-test used to assess EFL development in monolingual and bilingual secondary school students (n = 1956) in Germany. We apply longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis to test invariance hypotheses and obtain proficiency estimates comparable over time. As a result, we achieve residual longitudinal measurement invariance. Furthermore, our analyses support the appropriateness of altering texts in a longitudinal C-test design, which allows for the anchoring of texts between waves to establish comparability of the measurements over time using the information of the repeated texts to estimate the change in the test scores. If used in such a design, a C-test provides reliable, valid, and efficient measures for EFL development in secondary education in bilingual and monolingual students in Germany.

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衡量对外英语通用语言技能的发展——C测试的纵向不变性

近年来，对外语评价的研究越来越多。然而，仍然需要基于大量样本的纵向分析的经验证据。在这种情况下，测量语言发展的测试必须满足测试质量的高标准，如有效性、可靠性和客观性，以及允许对变化分数的有效解释，要求纵向测量不变性。目前的研究侧重于方法论，旨在检验用于评估德国单语和双语中学生(n = 1956)英语发展的c测试的测量不变性。我们应用纵向验证性因子分析来检验不变性假设，并获得可比较的熟练程度估计。因此，我们实现了剩余的纵向测量不变性。此外，我们的分析支持在纵向c测试设计中改变文本的适当性，该设计允许在波浪之间锚定文本，以利用重复文本的信息来估计测试分数的变化，从而建立随时间测量的可比性。如果采用这样的设计，c测试为德国双语和单语学生在中学教育中的英语发展提供了可靠、有效和有效的措施。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Language Testing Multiple-

CiteScore

6.70

自引率

9.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： Language Testing is a fully peer reviewed international journal that publishes original research and review articles on language testing and assessment. It provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and information between people working in the fields of first and second language testing and assessment. This includes researchers and practitioners in EFL and ESL testing, and assessment in child language acquisition and language pathology. In addition, special attention is focused on issues of testing theory, experimental investigations, and the following up of practical implications.