Assistant professor of second language acquisition and language testing. My quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods research examines the role and impact of high-stakes tests in today’s society. Human rights, justice and fairness are central to my publications and research, which focus on how high-stakes language tests impact low-literate learners, how university admission language requirements determine the educational opportunities of international students, and how migration policies are shaped in Europe and Australia. Address: Blijde Inkomststraat 7 3000 Leuven Belgium
This study reports on a contextualized speaker evaluation experiment exploring the effects of lan... more This study reports on a contextualized speaker evaluation experiment exploring the effects of language variation (standard vs. colloquial varieties), ethnic identity (Flemish vs. Maghrebi) and wearing a headscarf on students' evaluation of a female university instructor in Flanders. 314 participants evaluated a single lecture of the instructor on professionalism, comprehensibility, authority, standardness, social attractiveness and physical attractiveness. The results suggest that when measured indirectly, colloquial Dutch is no less acceptable than Standard Dutch in higher education. No general downgrading of the Maghrebi identity was observed. When wearing a headscarf, the standardspeaking Maghrebi instructor was upgraded for professionalism.
Few studies have yet described concrete efforts by researchers in applied linguistics to systemat... more Few studies have yet described concrete efforts by researchers in applied linguistics to systematically impact language policy. In linguistics, there is a general lack of published work on interactions between research and policy, and authors have decried a general dearth of policy literacy among applied linguists. The goal of the current paper is to describe how applied linguistics research can bring about policy impact by presenting a narrative account of one approach aimed at impacting university admission language policies. The first part of the paper presents researchbased recommendations regarding language requirements for international students, the second focuses on mechanisms to communicate these recommendations to policy makers. The case study presented in this paper serves to argue that applied linguistic research and policy impact can go hand in hand, on the condition that policy recommendations are concrete, timely, seen as relevant, and researchers have a fundamental understanding of the policy-making context.
International Journal of Educational Research Open, 2022
In an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19, Emergency Remote Teaching was implemented worldwide... more In an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19, Emergency Remote Teaching was implemented worldwide. The global educational disruption led to a rise in quantitative studies investigating the effect of this shift on student outcomes. These studies suggest a greater negative impact of the pandemic on students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but often fall short of exploring learners' perspectives on online teaching practices. A Q study with 23 Newly Arrived Migrant Students in Flemish upper secondary education was conducted to investigate these pupils' perceptions of blended Emergency Remote Teaching. The results show that these students hold at least four different viewpoints regarding Emergency Remote Teaching. The importance pupils assign to interaction and the role of the teacher is an important grouping variable in these analyses.
The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) is a widely used test of receptive vocabulary, but no ... more The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) is a widely used test of receptive vocabulary, but no researchers to date have examined the performance of low-educated, low-literate L2 adults, or compared these individuals' performances to their more highly educated peers. In this study, we used many-facet Rasch analysis and mixed-effects linear regression to determine the impact of educational background and other demographic variables on PPVT test performance. The analyses rely on the performance data of 1014 adult learners of Dutch as a second language on the Dutch version of the PPVT (PPVT-III-NL). The results show that a substantial proportion of score variance can be attributed to educational background variables and to the educational tracks the participants followed. These tracks, which cater to the needs of different L2 learner profiles, appear to exacerbate rather than mediate any performance differences. Although this study provides evidence of performance differences and differential item functioning resulting from linguistic, demographic, and educational variables, it offers no data to invalidate the use of the PPVT on low-educated L2 adults.
This paper constitutes an edited transcript of two online panels, conducted with four scholars wh... more This paper constitutes an edited transcript of two online panels, conducted with four scholars whose complementary expertise regarding print literacy and migration offers a thought-provoking and innovative window on the representation of print literacy in applied linguistic research and in migration policy. The panel members are experts on language policy, literacy, proficiency and human capital research. Together, they address a range of interrelated matters: the constructs of language proficiency and literacy (with significant implication for assessment), the idea of literacy as human capital or as a human right, the urgent need for policy literacy among applied linguists, and the responsibility of applied linguistics in the literacy debate.
Rating scale development in the field of language assessment is often considered in dichotomous w... more Rating scale development in the field of language assessment is often considered in dichotomous ways: It is assumed to be guided either by expert intuition or by drawing on performance data. Even though quite a few authors have argued that rating scale development is rarely so easily classifiable, this dyadic view has dominated language testing research for over a decade. In this paper we refine the dominant model of rating scale development by drawing on a corpus of 36 studies identified in a systematic review. We present a model showing the different sources of scale construct in the corpus. In the discussion, we argue that rating scale designers, just like test developers more broadly, need to start by determining the purpose of the test, the relevant policies that guide test development and score use, and the intended score use when considering the design choices available to them. These include considering the impact of such sources on the generalizability of the scores, the precision of the post-test predictions that can be made about test takers' future performances and scoring reliability. The most important contributions of the
Elicited imitation (EI) is a much-used measurement instrument in applied linguistics, and it is c... more Elicited imitation (EI) is a much-used measurement instrument in applied linguistics, and it is considered a reliable and quick assessment of holistic speaking ability and implicit grammar knowledge. To date, however, EI research has overwhelmingly relied on highly educated participants. Only a few small-scale EI studies in applied linguistics have considered low-literate learners. Using Item Response Theory (IRT) and inferential parametric and nonparametric statistics, this study examined the EI performance of 113 L2 learners of Dutch with diverging educational backgrounds. All participants were enrolled in A1 and A2 Dutch L2 courses. Additionally, this study examined to what extent EI performances align with standardized tests of speaking and receptive vocabulary. The results indicate that EI can be used with both highly literate and low-educated participants, who will-however-be outperformed by higher educated learners. Especially the repetition of sentences containing pseudowords appears to result in substantial performance differences between the two groups.
Research in the field of Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) shows that university admission offic... more Research in the field of Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) shows that university admission officers and policy makers are not generally well-versed in matters of LAL. Only very few studies to date have traced why this may be the case, however, and in the field of language testing few studies to date have reported on how university admission language requirements are set. Nevertheless, because of the impact of test use on university admissions, developing such knowledge is essential to the progress of LAL as a discipline. This paper reports on a qualitative study that includes all university admission policy makers in one context (Flanders, Belgium). The analyses of the interviews show that the concerns and ideas of LAL scholars and those of university admission policy makers may differ substantially. Real-world policy is determined by pragmatism and compromise and policy makers, even at universities, may fail to consider empirical findings. Because this study shows that the view of policy makers can be quite dissimilar from the traditional approach taken in the LAL literature, the authors argue that it may be as beneficial to encourage policy literacy among language testing professionals, as to expect LAL from policy makers.
As higher education has grown into a global enterprise, international students have become an int... more As higher education has grown into a global enterprise, international students have become an integral part of the student population at many universities. Given this reality, it is striking that there are considerable gaps in our knowledge of whether and why international students make language gains, or fail to do so. In order to address these voids in research, this study employed a longitudinal mixed-methods design to measure oral and written gains made by international L2-Dutch students studying in universities in Flanders over an eight-month period. It also sheds light on the institutional and social contexts of the participants, as measured by longitudinal in-depth interviews. The quantitative data indicate that the participants made no demonstrable gains except on one sole indicator of written fluency, and the qualitative findings reveal that linguistic readiness, perceived linguistic inferiority, and a lack of access to the L1 community hampered students' opportunities and willingness to engage in meaningful interaction. This study offers no immediate reason to presume that rich input alone yields language gains, even with advanced learners in an academic context. Rather, it reaffirms the hypothesis that language learning in a naturalistic setting is driven by meaningful interaction and a sense of belonging.
Internationale studenten Nederlands als vreemde taal (NVT) die een
Nederlandstalige universiteits... more Internationale studenten Nederlands als vreemde taal (NVT) die een Nederlandstalige universiteitsopleiding willen volgen in Vlaanderen, moeten kunnen bewijzen dat ze taalvaardig genoeg zijn. Wat ‘genoeg’ echter betekent, en hoe robuust de bewijzen zijn, was echter nog nooit onderzocht, niet in Vlaanderen, maar eigenlijk ook elders niet. In zijn proefschrift1 wilde Bart Deygers nagaan of het toelatingsbeleid van Vlaamse universiteiten op degelijke argumenten steunt. Na een kort woordje over de Vlaamse onderzoekcontext valt dit artikel met de deur in huis en worden de voornaamste conclusies gepresenteerd. Daarna gaat het artikel dieper in op de didactische en beleidsmatige implicaties van die conclusies.
In J. Davis, J. Norris, M. Malone, T. McKay, & Y Son (Eds.). Useful Assessment And Evaluation In Language Education. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press., 2018
For international students in Flanders, Belgium, passing a language test is a prerequisite for un... more For international students in Flanders, Belgium, passing a language test is a prerequisite for university entrance. The certificates of the two main tests, STRT and ITNA, have equal judicial value at every Flemish university, but to date their equivalence has not been verified.
In Flanders, Belgium, university admission of undergraduate international L2 students requires a ... more In Flanders, Belgium, university admission of undergraduate international L2 students requires a certificate of an accredited test of Dutch. The two main university entrance tests used for certification share highly comparable oral components and CEFR-based oral rating criteria. This article discusses to what extent ratings on the oral components of these tests can be compared. The data used are the ratings of the oral performances of the same 82 candidates on both oral test components, which were administered within the same week. The correlation on the overall scores is high, but lower on the oral test component. Further analyses, including linear regression and multifaceted Rasch analysis, indicate that the B2 level was interpreted differently in the two tests. The results show that using the same language proficiency scales as the basis for rating scale criteria may lead to superficial correspondences or a perceived equivalence but does not necessarily lead to greater comparability of shared criteria. The findings of this study are especially useful for contexts in which different tests use similar criteria that are based on the same descriptors, and comparability is only assumed.
Justice has been the topic of comparatively few papers in the fields of applied linguistics or la... more Justice has been the topic of comparatively few papers in the fields of applied linguistics or language assessment. This may be due to the lack of a clear and agreed-upon definition on the one hand, or to the difficulty of operational-izing justice for test development on the other. This paper aims to remedy both problems by discussing prior conceptualizations of justice and by introducing six justice principles, which are based on theories of distributive justice that focus on human rights, fairness, equal opportunity, and dignity. The overarching aim of this paper is to advance the debate on justice, and to provide a consistent way of considering ethical and moral dilemmas that language testers face today.
Het is anno 2017 heel normaal om internationale studenten met een andere moedertaal niet zomaar t... more Het is anno 2017 heel normaal om internationale studenten met een andere moedertaal niet zomaar toe te laten tot universitaire studies. Bijna overal ter wereld worden talige criteria gebruikt om te beslis-sen of deze studenten zich kunnen inschrijven. Een dergelijk beleid berust op de veronderstelling dat een bepaald taalniveau nodig is om succesvol te kunnen deelnemen aan het academische leven. Het principe om talige criteria te gebruiken om de toelating van internationale studenten te controleren is ondertussen zo ingeburgerd dat het nog nauwelijks in vraag gesteld wordt. Toch blijft het goed om zelfs de meest courante praktijken kritisch te bevragen. Het doel van dit onderzoek was dan ook om na te gaan of het toelatingsbeleid van Vlaamse universiteiten in staat is om een onderscheid te maken tussen studenten die taalvaardig genoeg zijn voor de taal van universiteit, en studenten die dat nog niet zijn.
University entrance language tests are often administered under the assumption that even if langu... more University entrance language tests are often administered under the assumption that even if language proficiency does not determine academic success, a certain proficiency level is still required. Nevertheless, little research has focused on how well L2 students cope with the linguistic demands of their studies in the first months after passing an entrance test. Even fewer studies have taken a longitudinal perspective. Set in Flanders, Belgium, this study examines the opinions and experiences of 24 university staff members and 31 international L2 students, of whom 20 were tracked longitudinally. Attention is also given to test/retest results, academic score sheets, and class recordings. To investigate the validity of inferences made on the basis of L2 students' scores, Kane's (2013) Interpretation/ Use Argument approach is adopted, and principles from political philosophy are applied to investigate whether a policy that discriminates among students based on language test results can be considered just. It is concluded that the receptive language requirements of university studies exceed the expected B2 level and that the Flemish entrance tests include language tasks that are of little importance for first-year students. Furthermore, some of the students who failed the entrance test actually managed quite well in their studies – a result that entails broad implications concerning validation and justice even outside the study's localized setting.
Fifteen years after its publication, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is ... more Fifteen years after its publication, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is a commonly used document in language tests and policies across Europe. This article considers the CEFR's impact on university entrance language tests and policies that are used to regulate the entrance of international L2 students who wish to study in a national language of the host country. Using a qualitative approach, this study aims to (a) outline and compare the target language demands toward L2 students entering European universities and to (b) determine the impact of the CEFR on European university entrance policies, tests, and testers. This article offers an overview of the university entrance language requirements for foreign L2 students in 28 European countries or regions with an autonomous educational policy. It is based on structured interviews with 30 respondents involved with university entrance test development and knowledgeable about university entrance policies in their context. The results show that the CEFR is omnipresent in European university entrance language tests and that the B2 is the most commonly used level in that context. The data also show that normative CEFR use is very common and that in many contexts CEFR levels are misused for marketing purposes or to control university admission.
This study reports on a contextualized speaker evaluation experiment exploring the effects of lan... more This study reports on a contextualized speaker evaluation experiment exploring the effects of language variation (standard vs. colloquial varieties), ethnic identity (Flemish vs. Maghrebi) and wearing a headscarf on students' evaluation of a female university instructor in Flanders. 314 participants evaluated a single lecture of the instructor on professionalism, comprehensibility, authority, standardness, social attractiveness and physical attractiveness. The results suggest that when measured indirectly, colloquial Dutch is no less acceptable than Standard Dutch in higher education. No general downgrading of the Maghrebi identity was observed. When wearing a headscarf, the standardspeaking Maghrebi instructor was upgraded for professionalism.
Few studies have yet described concrete efforts by researchers in applied linguistics to systemat... more Few studies have yet described concrete efforts by researchers in applied linguistics to systematically impact language policy. In linguistics, there is a general lack of published work on interactions between research and policy, and authors have decried a general dearth of policy literacy among applied linguists. The goal of the current paper is to describe how applied linguistics research can bring about policy impact by presenting a narrative account of one approach aimed at impacting university admission language policies. The first part of the paper presents researchbased recommendations regarding language requirements for international students, the second focuses on mechanisms to communicate these recommendations to policy makers. The case study presented in this paper serves to argue that applied linguistic research and policy impact can go hand in hand, on the condition that policy recommendations are concrete, timely, seen as relevant, and researchers have a fundamental understanding of the policy-making context.
International Journal of Educational Research Open, 2022
In an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19, Emergency Remote Teaching was implemented worldwide... more In an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19, Emergency Remote Teaching was implemented worldwide. The global educational disruption led to a rise in quantitative studies investigating the effect of this shift on student outcomes. These studies suggest a greater negative impact of the pandemic on students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but often fall short of exploring learners' perspectives on online teaching practices. A Q study with 23 Newly Arrived Migrant Students in Flemish upper secondary education was conducted to investigate these pupils' perceptions of blended Emergency Remote Teaching. The results show that these students hold at least four different viewpoints regarding Emergency Remote Teaching. The importance pupils assign to interaction and the role of the teacher is an important grouping variable in these analyses.
The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) is a widely used test of receptive vocabulary, but no ... more The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) is a widely used test of receptive vocabulary, but no researchers to date have examined the performance of low-educated, low-literate L2 adults, or compared these individuals' performances to their more highly educated peers. In this study, we used many-facet Rasch analysis and mixed-effects linear regression to determine the impact of educational background and other demographic variables on PPVT test performance. The analyses rely on the performance data of 1014 adult learners of Dutch as a second language on the Dutch version of the PPVT (PPVT-III-NL). The results show that a substantial proportion of score variance can be attributed to educational background variables and to the educational tracks the participants followed. These tracks, which cater to the needs of different L2 learner profiles, appear to exacerbate rather than mediate any performance differences. Although this study provides evidence of performance differences and differential item functioning resulting from linguistic, demographic, and educational variables, it offers no data to invalidate the use of the PPVT on low-educated L2 adults.
This paper constitutes an edited transcript of two online panels, conducted with four scholars wh... more This paper constitutes an edited transcript of two online panels, conducted with four scholars whose complementary expertise regarding print literacy and migration offers a thought-provoking and innovative window on the representation of print literacy in applied linguistic research and in migration policy. The panel members are experts on language policy, literacy, proficiency and human capital research. Together, they address a range of interrelated matters: the constructs of language proficiency and literacy (with significant implication for assessment), the idea of literacy as human capital or as a human right, the urgent need for policy literacy among applied linguists, and the responsibility of applied linguistics in the literacy debate.
Rating scale development in the field of language assessment is often considered in dichotomous w... more Rating scale development in the field of language assessment is often considered in dichotomous ways: It is assumed to be guided either by expert intuition or by drawing on performance data. Even though quite a few authors have argued that rating scale development is rarely so easily classifiable, this dyadic view has dominated language testing research for over a decade. In this paper we refine the dominant model of rating scale development by drawing on a corpus of 36 studies identified in a systematic review. We present a model showing the different sources of scale construct in the corpus. In the discussion, we argue that rating scale designers, just like test developers more broadly, need to start by determining the purpose of the test, the relevant policies that guide test development and score use, and the intended score use when considering the design choices available to them. These include considering the impact of such sources on the generalizability of the scores, the precision of the post-test predictions that can be made about test takers' future performances and scoring reliability. The most important contributions of the
Elicited imitation (EI) is a much-used measurement instrument in applied linguistics, and it is c... more Elicited imitation (EI) is a much-used measurement instrument in applied linguistics, and it is considered a reliable and quick assessment of holistic speaking ability and implicit grammar knowledge. To date, however, EI research has overwhelmingly relied on highly educated participants. Only a few small-scale EI studies in applied linguistics have considered low-literate learners. Using Item Response Theory (IRT) and inferential parametric and nonparametric statistics, this study examined the EI performance of 113 L2 learners of Dutch with diverging educational backgrounds. All participants were enrolled in A1 and A2 Dutch L2 courses. Additionally, this study examined to what extent EI performances align with standardized tests of speaking and receptive vocabulary. The results indicate that EI can be used with both highly literate and low-educated participants, who will-however-be outperformed by higher educated learners. Especially the repetition of sentences containing pseudowords appears to result in substantial performance differences between the two groups.
Research in the field of Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) shows that university admission offic... more Research in the field of Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) shows that university admission officers and policy makers are not generally well-versed in matters of LAL. Only very few studies to date have traced why this may be the case, however, and in the field of language testing few studies to date have reported on how university admission language requirements are set. Nevertheless, because of the impact of test use on university admissions, developing such knowledge is essential to the progress of LAL as a discipline. This paper reports on a qualitative study that includes all university admission policy makers in one context (Flanders, Belgium). The analyses of the interviews show that the concerns and ideas of LAL scholars and those of university admission policy makers may differ substantially. Real-world policy is determined by pragmatism and compromise and policy makers, even at universities, may fail to consider empirical findings. Because this study shows that the view of policy makers can be quite dissimilar from the traditional approach taken in the LAL literature, the authors argue that it may be as beneficial to encourage policy literacy among language testing professionals, as to expect LAL from policy makers.
As higher education has grown into a global enterprise, international students have become an int... more As higher education has grown into a global enterprise, international students have become an integral part of the student population at many universities. Given this reality, it is striking that there are considerable gaps in our knowledge of whether and why international students make language gains, or fail to do so. In order to address these voids in research, this study employed a longitudinal mixed-methods design to measure oral and written gains made by international L2-Dutch students studying in universities in Flanders over an eight-month period. It also sheds light on the institutional and social contexts of the participants, as measured by longitudinal in-depth interviews. The quantitative data indicate that the participants made no demonstrable gains except on one sole indicator of written fluency, and the qualitative findings reveal that linguistic readiness, perceived linguistic inferiority, and a lack of access to the L1 community hampered students' opportunities and willingness to engage in meaningful interaction. This study offers no immediate reason to presume that rich input alone yields language gains, even with advanced learners in an academic context. Rather, it reaffirms the hypothesis that language learning in a naturalistic setting is driven by meaningful interaction and a sense of belonging.
Internationale studenten Nederlands als vreemde taal (NVT) die een
Nederlandstalige universiteits... more Internationale studenten Nederlands als vreemde taal (NVT) die een Nederlandstalige universiteitsopleiding willen volgen in Vlaanderen, moeten kunnen bewijzen dat ze taalvaardig genoeg zijn. Wat ‘genoeg’ echter betekent, en hoe robuust de bewijzen zijn, was echter nog nooit onderzocht, niet in Vlaanderen, maar eigenlijk ook elders niet. In zijn proefschrift1 wilde Bart Deygers nagaan of het toelatingsbeleid van Vlaamse universiteiten op degelijke argumenten steunt. Na een kort woordje over de Vlaamse onderzoekcontext valt dit artikel met de deur in huis en worden de voornaamste conclusies gepresenteerd. Daarna gaat het artikel dieper in op de didactische en beleidsmatige implicaties van die conclusies.
In J. Davis, J. Norris, M. Malone, T. McKay, & Y Son (Eds.). Useful Assessment And Evaluation In Language Education. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press., 2018
For international students in Flanders, Belgium, passing a language test is a prerequisite for un... more For international students in Flanders, Belgium, passing a language test is a prerequisite for university entrance. The certificates of the two main tests, STRT and ITNA, have equal judicial value at every Flemish university, but to date their equivalence has not been verified.
In Flanders, Belgium, university admission of undergraduate international L2 students requires a ... more In Flanders, Belgium, university admission of undergraduate international L2 students requires a certificate of an accredited test of Dutch. The two main university entrance tests used for certification share highly comparable oral components and CEFR-based oral rating criteria. This article discusses to what extent ratings on the oral components of these tests can be compared. The data used are the ratings of the oral performances of the same 82 candidates on both oral test components, which were administered within the same week. The correlation on the overall scores is high, but lower on the oral test component. Further analyses, including linear regression and multifaceted Rasch analysis, indicate that the B2 level was interpreted differently in the two tests. The results show that using the same language proficiency scales as the basis for rating scale criteria may lead to superficial correspondences or a perceived equivalence but does not necessarily lead to greater comparability of shared criteria. The findings of this study are especially useful for contexts in which different tests use similar criteria that are based on the same descriptors, and comparability is only assumed.
Justice has been the topic of comparatively few papers in the fields of applied linguistics or la... more Justice has been the topic of comparatively few papers in the fields of applied linguistics or language assessment. This may be due to the lack of a clear and agreed-upon definition on the one hand, or to the difficulty of operational-izing justice for test development on the other. This paper aims to remedy both problems by discussing prior conceptualizations of justice and by introducing six justice principles, which are based on theories of distributive justice that focus on human rights, fairness, equal opportunity, and dignity. The overarching aim of this paper is to advance the debate on justice, and to provide a consistent way of considering ethical and moral dilemmas that language testers face today.
Het is anno 2017 heel normaal om internationale studenten met een andere moedertaal niet zomaar t... more Het is anno 2017 heel normaal om internationale studenten met een andere moedertaal niet zomaar toe te laten tot universitaire studies. Bijna overal ter wereld worden talige criteria gebruikt om te beslis-sen of deze studenten zich kunnen inschrijven. Een dergelijk beleid berust op de veronderstelling dat een bepaald taalniveau nodig is om succesvol te kunnen deelnemen aan het academische leven. Het principe om talige criteria te gebruiken om de toelating van internationale studenten te controleren is ondertussen zo ingeburgerd dat het nog nauwelijks in vraag gesteld wordt. Toch blijft het goed om zelfs de meest courante praktijken kritisch te bevragen. Het doel van dit onderzoek was dan ook om na te gaan of het toelatingsbeleid van Vlaamse universiteiten in staat is om een onderscheid te maken tussen studenten die taalvaardig genoeg zijn voor de taal van universiteit, en studenten die dat nog niet zijn.
University entrance language tests are often administered under the assumption that even if langu... more University entrance language tests are often administered under the assumption that even if language proficiency does not determine academic success, a certain proficiency level is still required. Nevertheless, little research has focused on how well L2 students cope with the linguistic demands of their studies in the first months after passing an entrance test. Even fewer studies have taken a longitudinal perspective. Set in Flanders, Belgium, this study examines the opinions and experiences of 24 university staff members and 31 international L2 students, of whom 20 were tracked longitudinally. Attention is also given to test/retest results, academic score sheets, and class recordings. To investigate the validity of inferences made on the basis of L2 students' scores, Kane's (2013) Interpretation/ Use Argument approach is adopted, and principles from political philosophy are applied to investigate whether a policy that discriminates among students based on language test results can be considered just. It is concluded that the receptive language requirements of university studies exceed the expected B2 level and that the Flemish entrance tests include language tasks that are of little importance for first-year students. Furthermore, some of the students who failed the entrance test actually managed quite well in their studies – a result that entails broad implications concerning validation and justice even outside the study's localized setting.
Fifteen years after its publication, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is ... more Fifteen years after its publication, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is a commonly used document in language tests and policies across Europe. This article considers the CEFR's impact on university entrance language tests and policies that are used to regulate the entrance of international L2 students who wish to study in a national language of the host country. Using a qualitative approach, this study aims to (a) outline and compare the target language demands toward L2 students entering European universities and to (b) determine the impact of the CEFR on European university entrance policies, tests, and testers. This article offers an overview of the university entrance language requirements for foreign L2 students in 28 European countries or regions with an autonomous educational policy. It is based on structured interviews with 30 respondents involved with university entrance test development and knowledgeable about university entrance policies in their context. The results show that the CEFR is omnipresent in European university entrance language tests and that the B2 is the most commonly used level in that context. The data also show that normative CEFR use is very common and that in many contexts CEFR levels are misused for marketing purposes or to control university admission.
In the entrance policy for L2 students at European universities, the CEFR is a major point of ref... more In the entrance policy for L2 students at European universities, the CEFR is a major point of reference. B2 and C1 are often cited as key threshold levels, but to date, there has never been a study to compare the language demands of European universities towards L2 students. The ways in which these university entrance language tests operationalize the B2 and C1 levels have not been compared either.
This presentation provides an overview of the university entrance language requirements in the 26 countries united in the Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE). More than an enumeration of CEFR demands, it provides a comparative account of common practices in language tests in Europe. Additionally, this study includes the opinion of the professionals developing these tests.
The central idea of the CEFR has always been to increase transparency and to create a common point of reference across educational systems. More than a decade after the original publication of the CEFR, this presentation discusses the impact of the CEFR, not only on university entrance policies across Europe, but also on test development practice.
Even though a task-based approach to language testing has become more mainstream in recent years,... more Even though a task-based approach to language testing has become more mainstream in recent years, it is not an entirely uncontested practice. One of the issues relating to task-based language assessment (TBLA) has to do with the inferences that can be made based on task performances. Another has to do with consistency in task difficulty.
Task-based testing seems to invite a level of uncertainty no language tester would want to accept - all for the sake of introducing a degree of realism in a test context that is artificial by nature. Centralized testing requires so much in terms of practicality and reliability that it seems quite unrealistic to incorporate task-based principles. Still, many performance tests now incorporate task-like sections that are supported by constructs to guide the inferences and backed by procedures to monitor difficulty. In the end one may wonder though whether true TBLA and large scale testing are reconcilable and what large-scale TBLA would imply in terms of validity, reliability, impact and practicality.
By moving beyond a black-white conceptualization of TBLA this presentation continues the debate about TBLA validity and about the inferences that can be made on the basis of language tests. This presentation discusses task-based test tasks, and examines their contribution to innovations in language testing.
The Certificate Dutch as a Foreign Language (CNaVT) offers Dutch task-based language exams for 6 ... more The Certificate Dutch as a Foreign Language (CNaVT) offers Dutch task-based language exams for 6 different profiles which have been determined by an extensive needs analysis . The task content is codetermined by a pool of subject specialists around the world who verify the authenticity and representativeness of each task and check the items for cultural bias.
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Papers by Bart Deygers
Nederlandstalige universiteitsopleiding willen volgen in Vlaanderen, moeten
kunnen bewijzen dat ze taalvaardig genoeg zijn. Wat ‘genoeg’ echter
betekent, en hoe robuust de bewijzen zijn, was echter nog nooit
onderzocht, niet in Vlaanderen, maar eigenlijk ook elders niet.
In zijn proefschrift1 wilde Bart Deygers nagaan of het toelatingsbeleid van
Vlaamse universiteiten op degelijke argumenten steunt.
Na een kort woordje over de Vlaamse onderzoekcontext valt dit artikel met
de deur in huis en worden de voornaamste conclusies gepresenteerd.
Daarna gaat het artikel dieper in op de didactische en beleidsmatige
implicaties van die conclusies.
Nederlandstalige universiteitsopleiding willen volgen in Vlaanderen, moeten
kunnen bewijzen dat ze taalvaardig genoeg zijn. Wat ‘genoeg’ echter
betekent, en hoe robuust de bewijzen zijn, was echter nog nooit
onderzocht, niet in Vlaanderen, maar eigenlijk ook elders niet.
In zijn proefschrift1 wilde Bart Deygers nagaan of het toelatingsbeleid van
Vlaamse universiteiten op degelijke argumenten steunt.
Na een kort woordje over de Vlaamse onderzoekcontext valt dit artikel met
de deur in huis en worden de voornaamste conclusies gepresenteerd.
Daarna gaat het artikel dieper in op de didactische en beleidsmatige
implicaties van die conclusies.
This presentation provides an overview of the university entrance language requirements in the 26 countries united in the Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE). More than an enumeration of CEFR demands, it provides a comparative account of common practices in language tests in Europe. Additionally, this study includes the opinion of the professionals developing these tests.
The central idea of the CEFR has always been to increase transparency and to create a common point of reference across educational systems. More than a decade after the original publication of the CEFR, this presentation discusses the impact of the CEFR, not only on university entrance policies across Europe, but also on test development practice.
Task-based testing seems to invite a level of uncertainty no language tester would want to accept - all for the sake of introducing a degree of realism in a test context that is artificial by nature. Centralized testing requires so much in terms of practicality and reliability that it seems quite unrealistic to incorporate task-based principles. Still, many performance tests now incorporate task-like sections that are supported by constructs to guide the inferences and backed by procedures to monitor difficulty. In the end one may wonder though whether true TBLA and large scale testing are reconcilable and what large-scale TBLA would imply in terms of validity, reliability, impact and practicality.
By moving beyond a black-white conceptualization of TBLA this presentation continues the debate about TBLA validity and about the inferences that can be made on the basis of language tests. This presentation discusses task-based test tasks, and examines their contribution to innovations in language testing.