Using Standards and Empirical Evidence to Develop Academic English Proficiency Test Items in Reading. CSE Technical Report 664.

Abstract

The work we report focuses on utilizing linguistic profiles of mathematics, science and social studies textbook selections for the creation of reading test specifications. Once we determined that a text and associated tasks fit within the parameters established in Butler et al. (2004), they underwent both internal and external review by language experts and content-area teachers. The external review provided data based on background questionnaires, text and item reviews used to judge representative aspects of topics and linguistic characteristics, and group interviews. Based on this information, the texts were either retained or rejected and items were retained, rejected or reserved for future modification. In the future, retained texts and items can be further analyzed for fit with empirically established text profiles. Part I: Introduction As specified in the abstract, the purpose of this report is to apply the information acquired from comprehensive linguistic analyses of fifth-grade texts previously conducted (Butler, Bailey, Stevens, Huang, & Lord, 2004) to the development of standards-informed academic language items. The work described 1 Acknowledgments: We would like to thank the following for their role in the preparation of this work: the teachers who took part in the review and discussion of the texts and reading items developed here, administrative assistance from Soo Dennison and Morgan Joeck at the early stages of the work, Joan Herman for valuable feedback on an earlier draft of this report, and Fred Moss and Wade Contreras for the final formatting.