New and not so new methods for assessing oral communication

The assessment of oral communication has continued to evolve over the past few decades. The construct being assessed has broadened to include interactional competence, and technology has played a role in the types of tasks that are currently popular. In this paper, we discuss the factors that affect the process of oral communication assessment, current conceptualizations of the construct to be assessed, and five tasks that are used to assess this construct. These tasks include oral proficiency interviews, paired/group oral discussion tasks, simulated tasks, integrated oral communication tasks, and elicited imitation tasks. We evaluate these tasks based on current conceptualizations of the construct of oral communication, and conclude that they do not assess a broad construct of oral communication equally. Based on our evaluation, we advise test developers to consider the aspects of oral communication that they aim to include or exclude in their assessment when they select one of these task types

The effects of item preview on video-based multiple-choice listening assessments

Multiple-choice formats remain a popular design for assessing listening comprehension, yet no consensus has been reached on how multiple-choice formats should be employed. Some researchers argue that test takers must be provided with a preview of the items prior to the input (Buck, 1995; Sherman, 1997); others argue that a preview may decrease the authenticity of the task by changing the way input is processed (Hughes, 2003). Using stratified random sampling techniques, more and less proficient Japanese university English learners (N = 206) were assigned one of three test conditions: preview of question stem and answer options (n = 67), preview of question stem only (n = 70), and no preview (n = 69). A two-way ANOVA, with test condition and listening proficiency level as independent variables and score on the multiple-choice listening test as the dependent variable, indicated that the amount of item preview affected test scores but did not affect high and low proficiency students’ scores differently. Item-level analysis identified items that were harder or easier than expected for one or more of the conditions, and the researchers posit three possible sources for these unexpected findings: 1) frequency of options in the input, 2) location of item focus, and 3) presence of organizational markers

From One to Multiple Accents on a Test of L2 Listening Comprehension

Concerns about the need for assessing multidialectal listening skills for global contexts are becoming increasingly prevalent. However, the inclusion of multiple accents on listening assessments may threaten test fairness because it is not practical to include every accent that may be encountered in the language use domain on these tests. Given this dilemma, this study aimed to determine the extent to which accent strength and familiarity affect comprehension and to provide a defensible direction for assessing multidialectal listening comprehension. A strength of accent scale was developed, and one US, four Australian, and four British English speakers of English were selected based on a judgment of their strength of accent. Next, TOEFL test takers (N = 21,726) were randomly assigned to listen to a common lecture given by one of the nine selected speakers, and respond to six comprehension items and a survey designed to assess their familiarity with various accents. The results suggest that strength of accent and familiarity do affect listening comprehension, and these factors affect comprehension even with quite light accents

Chk1 inhibits replication factory activation but allows dormant origin firing in existing factories

Replication origins are licensed by loading MCM2-7 hexamers before entry into S phase. However, only ∼10% of licensed origins are normally used in S phase, with the others remaining dormant. When fork progression is inhibited, dormant origins initiate nearby to ensure that all of the DNA is eventually replicated. In apparent contrast, replicative stress activates ataxia telangiectasia and rad-3–related (ATR) and Chk1 checkpoint kinases that inhibit origin firing. In this study, we show that at low levels of replication stress, ATR/Chk1 predominantly suppresses origin initiation by inhibiting the activation of new replication factories, thereby reducing the number of active factories. At the same time, inhibition of replication fork progression allows dormant origins to initiate within existing replication factories. The inhibition of new factory activation by ATR/Chk1 therefore redirects replication toward active factories where forks are inhibited and away from regions that have yet to start replication. This minimizes the deleterious consequences of fork stalling and prevents similar problems from arising in unreplicated regions of the genome

A phase I study of extended dosing with lomeguatrib with temozolomide in patients with advanced melanoma

Lomeguatrib, an O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase inactivator, was evaluated in an extended dosing regimen with temozolomide, designed according to pharmacodynamic data from previous studies. Patients with unresectable stage 3 or 4 cutaneous or unknown primary melanoma metastases were treated with lomeguatrib 40 mg, b.i.d. for 10 or 14 days and temozolomide 75–100 mg m−2 on days 1–5. Drugs were administered orally with cycles repeated every 28 days, for up to six cycles. A total of 32 patients were recruited to the study. Lomeguatrib for 10 days with temozolomide 75 mg m−2 was established as the optimal extended lomeguatrib dosing schedule, with haematological toxicity being dose limiting. There were two partial responses to treatment giving an overall response rate of 6.25%. Extending lomeguatrib administration beyond that of temozolomide requires a reduced dose of the latter agent. Only limited clinical activity was seen, suggesting no advantage for this regimen over conventional temozolomide administration in the treatment of melanoma

The historical origins of corruption in the developing world: a comparative analysis of East Asia

A new approach has emerged in the literature on corruption in the developing world that breaks with the assumption that corruption is driven by individualistic self-interest and, instead, conceptualizes corruption as an informal system of norms and practices. While this emerging neo-institutionalist approach has done much to further our understanding of corruption in the developing world, one key question has received relatively little attention: how do we explain differences in the institutionalization of corruption between developing countries? The paper here addresses this question through a systematic comparison of seven developing and newly industrialized countries in East Asia. The argument that emerges through this analysis is that historical sequencing mattered: countries in which the "political marketplace" had gone through a process of concentration before universal suffrage was introduced are now marked by less harmful types of corruption than countries where mass voting rights where rolled out in a context of fragmented political marketplaces. The paper concludes by demonstrating that this argument can be generalized to the developing world as a whole