Evaluating intermediate Spanish students\u27 speaking skills through a taped test: A pilot study

A pilot study used the Spanish Oral Proficiency Test (SOPT)-a taped oral test to evaluate oral proficiency level of students of Intermediate Spanish. Based on the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (1986), the Intermediate-Mid was the appropriate level of oral proficiency for students at the end of two years of college- level language study. The study also examined what variables might affect the development of students\u27 oral skills. The results showed that foreign language learning experience in academic settings or outside of class, such as study abroad and travel abroad, might affect students\u27 overall speaking proficiency. In addition, lin- guistic inaccuracy from informal training may keep speakers to lower levels of proficiency. Learners should be more aware of the need to speak correctly to maintain a balance between function, content, and accuracy

The Proficiency of Experts

Expert evidence plays a crucial role in civil and criminal litigation. Changes in the rules concerning expert admissibility, following the Supreme Court\u27s Daubert ruling, strengthened judicial review of the reliability and the validity of an expert\u27s methods. Judges and scholars, however, have neglected the threshold question for expert evidence: whether a person should be qualified as an expert in the first place. Judges traditionally focus on credentials or experience when qualifying experts without regard to whether those criteria are good proxies for true expertise. We argue that credentials and experience are often poor proxies for proficiency. Qualification of an expert presumes that the witness can perform in a particular domain with a proficiency that non-experts cannot achieve, yet many experts cannot provide empirical evidence that they do in fact perform at high levels of proficiency. To demonstrate the importance ofproficiency data, we collect and analyze two decades of proficiency testing of latent fingerprint examiners. In this important domain, we found surprisingly high rates of false positive identifications for the period 1995 to 2016. These data would qualify the claims of many fingerprint examiners regarding their near infallibility, but unfortunately, judges do not seek out such information. We survey the federal and state case law and show how judges typically accept expert credentials as a proxy for proficiency in lieu of direct proof of proficiency. Indeed, judges often reject parties\u27 attempts to obtain and introduce at trial empirical data on an expert\u27s actual proficiency. We argue that any expert who purports to give falsifiable opinions can be subjected to proficiency testing and that proficiency testing is the only objective means of assessing the accuracy and reliability ofexperts who rely on subjective judgments to formulate their opinions (so-called black-box experts ). Judges should use proficiency data to make expert qualification decisions when the data is available, should demand proof of proficiency before qualifying black-box experts, and should admit at trial proficiency data for any qualified expert. We seek to revitalize the standard for qualifying experts: expertise should equal proficiency

The Proficiency Illusion

Examines the tests states use to measure academic progress under the No Child Left Behind Act. Explores whether expectations for proficiency in reading and mathematics are consistent between states

The Economic Pay-Offs To On-The-Job Training In Routine Service Work

This study examines the relationship between on-the-job training and job performance among 3,408 telephone operators in a large unionized telecommunications company. We utilize individual data on monthly training hours and job performance over a five-month period as provided by the company’s electronic monitoring system. Results indicate that the receipt of on-the-job training is associated with significantly higher productivity over time, when unobserved individual heterogeneity is taken into account. Moreover, workers with lower pre-training proficiency show greater improvements over time than those with higher pre-training proficiency. Finally, whether the training is provided by a supervisor or a peer also matters. Workers with lower proficiency achieve greater productivity gains through supervisor training, while workers with higher proficiency achieve greater productivity gains through peer training

English Proficiency of Students at Politeknik Negeri Balikpapan Based on TOEIC

English language proficiency is generally measured by English competency scores such as TOEFL and TOEIC. To be able to apply the right learning patterns for students of Politeknik Negeri Balikpapan (Poltekba) for the purpose of mastering the TOEIC, an analysis of their English proficiency is needed by measuring their TOEIC scores. This analysis can be used as a reference for English lecturers in providing relevant learning materials according to the needs of the students and the industrial world. The research method used is qualitative-quantitative because it focuses on analyzing the TOEIC scores of the students. The researchers conducted analysis on the TOEIC scores as the data and explained them descriptively. The data used in this analysis are TOEIC scores from 291 students. The scores were mapped into 6 levels of English proficiency. The results of this study describe the level of English proficiency and the comparison between mastering Listening and Reading Comprehensions by the students at Politeknik Negeri Balikpapan

LEXTALE_CH: A quick, character-based proficiency test for Mandarin Chinese

Research in second language acquisition suggests that objective performance-based assessments may provide more reliable and valid measures of second language proficiency than subjective self-ratings. To measure proficiency in English as a second language, a quick, vocabulary-based test called LexTALE (Lexical Test for Advanced Learners of English) was developed and shown to be able to differentiate between various levels of English proficiency. Following in the line of adaptations of this test for other languages, we created a character-based adaptation for Mandarin Chinese: LEXTALE_CH. In this paper, we discuss the development and validation of LEXTALE_CH in detail. In short, LEXTALE_CH can discriminate between high and low levels of Mandarin proficiency and is sensitive to the significant differences in vocabulary size between native speakers and second language learners of Mandarin; further, it takes only a few minutes to administer and is simple to score, making it a practical tool for low-stakes estimation of Mandarin proficiency.http://www.lingref.com/bucld/42/BUCLD42-09.pdfPublished versio

Exploring the Relationship between K-8 Prospective Teachers’ Algebraic Thinking Proficiency and the Questions They Pose during Diagnostic Algebraic Thinking Interviews

In this study, we explored the relationship between prospective teachers’ algebraic thinking and the questions they posed during one-on-one diagnostic interviews that focused on investigating the algebraic thinking of middle school students. To do so, we evaluated prospective teachers’ algebraic thinking proficiency across 125 algebra-based tasks and we analyzed the characteristics of questions they posed during the interviews. We found that prospective teachers with lower algebraic thinking proficiency did not ask any probing questions. Instead, they either posed questions that simply accepted and affirmed student responses or posed questions that guided the students toward an answer without probing student thinking. In contrast, prospective teachers with higher algebraic thinking proficiency were able to pose probing questions to investigate student thinking or help students clarify their thinking. However, less than half of their questions were of this probing type. These results suggest that prospective teachers’ algebraic thinking proficiency is related to the types of questions they ask to explore the algebraic thinking of students. Implications for mathematics teacher education are discussed

Fairness perceptions of video resumes among ethnically diverse applicants

This study investigated ethnic majority and minority applicants’ fairness perceptions (n = 445) of video resumes, compared to paper resumes. Additionally, the moderating effect of minorities’ ethnic identity and language proficiency on fairness perceptions of video/paper resumes was studied. Despite discriminatory concerns, ethnic minority applicants perceived the fairness of video resumes equally or more positively when compared to ethnic majority applicants, and when compared to paper resumes. Minorities’ ethnic identity was positively related to fairness perceptions of resumes. Furthermore, language proficiency was a significant moderator: Higher proficiency was related to higher fairness perceptions of paper resumes. The implication is suggested that ethnic minority applicants may prefer a more personalized way of applying, (video resume), instead of less personalized ways

Destination-Language Proficiency in Cross-National Perspective: A Study of Immigrant Groups in Nine Western Countries

Immigrants’ destination-language proficiency has been typically studied from a microperspective in a single country. In this article, the authors examine the role of macrofactors in a cross-national perspective. They argue that three groups of macrolevel factors are important: the country immigrants settle in (“destination” effect), the sending nation (“origin” effect), and the combination between origin and destination (“setting” or “community” effect). The authors propose a design that simultaneously observes multiple origin groups in multiple destinations. They present substantive hypotheses about language proficiency and use them to develop a series of macrolevel indicators. The authors collected and standardized 19 existing immigrant surveys for nine Western countries. Using multilevel techniques, their analyses show that origins, destinations, and settings play a significant role in immigrants’ language proficiency.