The 5th Annual International Conference of the Asian Association for Language Assessment (AALA) (AALA 2018)

268 / 2018-04-16 15:03:34

The validation of the Specifications for standardized test for English Proficiency in the Vietnamese context

validity

Plenary track > Standards in validating language assessments

In this presentation we show the results of the validation of the Specifications for standardized tests for English Proficiency as developed by Hue University in Vietnam within the framework of the National Foreign Language Project 2020 in Vietnam. These specifications describe all relevant information concerning the standardized tests of English proficiency for the levels 1, 2 and 3, in which the target population of level 1 are the students in primary education, for level 2 the students in lower secondary education and for level 3 the students in upper secondary school.
The documents of the Specifications contain detailed descriptions of a number of relevant issues concerning the context, preparation, administration and marking of the proficiency tests, all documented very carefully and illustrated with examples. As the first underlying construct in this validation process we followed the EALTA Guidelines for Good Practice in Language Testing and Assessment to cover each aspect of the test cycle. A second element was the psychometrical analysis carried out for all 3 levels and the conclusions based on these test results. Important assessment related concepts that played a role when screening the content of the tests are core values in assessment such as validity, reliability, transparency and equity. The last aspect of the validation process was the link to CEFR.