Item Details

Developing a Multimedia, Computer-based Spanish Placement Test

Issue: Vol 24 No. 3 (2007)

Journal: CALICO Journal

Subject Areas:

DOI: 10.1558/cj.v24i3.675-692

Abstract:

Placing students of a foreign language within a basic language program constitutes an ongoing problem, particularly for large university departments when they have many incoming freshmen and transfer students. This article outlines the author's experience designing and piloting a language placement test for a university level Spanish program. The paper offers rationale for the project as well as step-by-step instructions and commentary on how to build such a test. The aim of the project was twofold. First, the design and implementation of the test was meant to address a need of a large Spanish language program by offering a fast, reliable, and easy-to-administer Spanish placement test. Second, the use of multimedia-based test items was intended to improve and facilitate comprehensible input by test takers. Analysis of the data indicates that multimedia-based items show marginal improvement in item facility (IF) coefficients over text-only items.

Author: Francisco Zabaleta

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