EALTA 2018 - 15th European association for language testing and assessment Conference - Technology-based language assessment: benefits and challenges
Date : du 25-05-2018 au 27-05-2018
Lieu : Bochum
Organisation : European association for language testing and assessment (EALTA)
Programme :
Technology-based language assessment (TBLA) generally refers to the use of electronic devices, systems, and software to assess language skills or abilities in a specified domain and to monitor or evaluate progress in language learning. In recent years, TBLA has come to play an increasingly dominant role in all stages of designing, developing, and delivering language tests, and thus includes much more than just presenting language test items and tasks on computers. In fact, most language tests and assessment instruments in current use employ digital technology in critically important ways, and some tests are already completely digitally based and administered exclusively via the Internet.
These profound changes are associated with lots of benefits that are obvious when comparing TBLA to traditional paper-based testing. The benefits include higher efficiency and flexibility in test administration (e.g., continuous and on-demand administration), faster turnaround of scores and score reports, and higher precision of test results. A particularly compelling benefit of TBLA is the possibility to deliver technology-enhanced item formats. These formats promise to be more authentic, more closely representing the real-world skills and abilities to which score interpretations refer; at the same time, they may be more engaging, more motivating for examinees (e.g., within the context of game-based or simulation-based approaches to language assessment and learning). On the other hand, TBLA poses a number of serious challenges that need to be carefully addressed in order to further advance the field and to develop truly innovative TBLA. At the heart of the challenges are validity and fairness issues, including construct-irrelevant score variance caused by unfamiliarity of item and response formats or by lack of accessibility or usability for all examinees.
The conference theme addresses both the benefits and the challenges of TBLA, and thus covers a whole range of conceptual, practical, and ethical issues that may be investigated building on diverse theoretical, empirical, and methodological perspectives or approaches.
Keynotes
- Prof. Carol A. Chapelle, Iowa State University, USA: Exploring the Potential of Natural Language Processing for Language Testing and Assessment
Carol A. Chapelle is Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University. She is editor of the Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (Wiley, 2013) as well as co-editor of Language Testing and of the Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series.
- Prof. Torsten Zesch, University Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Torsten Zesch leads the Language Technology Lab at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Workshops
1. Introduction to Rasch Measurement Using WINSTEPS and FACETS, by Thomas Eckes & Frank Weiss-Motz, TestDaF-Institut, Bochum, Germany
2. Quality Assurance in the Assessment of Receptive Language Skills: Test Construction and Item Writing, by Monique Reichert & Philipp Sonnleitner, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
3. Speaking Assessment: Oral Examiner Training, by Cathy Taylor & Anthea Wilson, Trinity College London, UK
URL : https://ealta2018.testdaf.de/.../
mot(s) clé(s) : évaluation, langues vivantes
