Abstract:

Among the areas of emphasis in the language-teaching profession today we find considerable emphasis on (a) evaluation, (b) contextualization, and (c) technology. Although the greater emphasis in language assessment has been on global proficiency, there is also a need to examine specific points of students' language competence in order to help them improve the correctness of their communication. Considering these areas of emphasis, we undertook an effort to create a contextualized, online, diagnostic test of Spanish. This article explains the rationale behind the project and the procedures for accomplishing the task. We also describe a study conducted to determine the validity and practicality of the contextualized test. Results of the study indicate there appears to be little, if any, measurement advantage in using a contextualized test over a more traditional discrete-point test.

Author: Jerry W. Larson, Harold H. Hendricks