Allocating Federal Funds for State Programs for English Language Learners (2011) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix A: Review of English Language Proficiency Tests
Appendix A: Review of English Language Proficiency Tests
Pages 181-208
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, Language Assessment Scales Links K-12 (LAS-Links) , and the Stanford English Language Proficiency Test (SELP)
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Development work on ACCESS is on-going, and approximately one-third of the test is refreshed every year.1 Content Standards The ELP content standards for ACCESS were developed jointly by eight of the WIDA member states in 2003. According to Bauman and colleagues (2007)
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Scores Reported ACCESS reports scores for each of the domains -- reading, writing, listening, and speaking -- as well as four composite scores. The overall composite score is formed by weighting reading and writing by 35 percent each and by weighting listening and speaking by 15 percent each.
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Bridging: English language learners will process, understand, produce, or use • the technical language of the content areas; • a variety of sentence lengths of varying linguistic complexity in extended oral or written discourse, including stories, essays, or reports; • oral or written language approaching comparability to that of English proficient peers when presented with grade level material. Reaching: English language learners will process, understand, produce, or use • specialized or technical language reflective of the content area at grade level; • a variety of sentence lengths of varying linguistic complexity in extended oral or written discourse as required by the specified grade level; • oral or written communication in English comparable to proficient English peers.
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Reliability and Validity Information about the technical qualities of the ACCESS assessment is provided in its technical reports, which are prepared each year; and the most recent report available to the panel was for the administrations held during the 2008-2009 school year.4 The technical reports contain detailed information about test specifications, item and form development, item and form analysis, equating, and standard setting. They also contain results of analyses to evaluate reliability and validity, and they document efforts to evaluate fairness issues (e.g., bias review panels, analyses of dif ferential item functioning)
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. In 1997, state legislation authorized the California Department of Education to develop ELP standards and a language proficiency assessment that would be used statewide, and the standards were adopted in 1999.
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The comprehension score is derived from performance on the reading and listening subtests, and an overall composite score is also reported. For grades 3 through 12, the composite score is the average of the scores in all four domains.
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To be considered proficient in English on the CELDT, students need to score at the "early advanced" level or higher and have no domain scores below "intermediate." Reliability and Validity Information about the technical qualities of the CELDT is provided in techni cal reports, which are prepared each year by the contractor (CTB/McGraw-Hill) ; and the most recent report available to the panel was for the administrations held during the 2008-2009 school year.6 The technical reports contain detailed information about test specifications, item and form development, item and form analysis, equating, and standard setting.
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an oral score, which is a composite of performance on the listening and speaking subtests; and (4) an overall composite score.
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Proficient: Proficient students speak in English and understand spoken English at grade level in a manner similar to non-English language learners. Proficient students read at grade level text in a manner similar to non-English language learners.
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The technical report contains detailed information about test specifications, item and form development, item and form analysis, equating, and standard setting. The report also contains results of an analy sis to evaluate bias and fairness (through analyses of differential item functioning)
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the lan guage of the social environment of school. Accordingly, the test items are intended to measure language skills with content drawn from language arts, math, science, technology; and social studies, although the items do not require skills in or knowl edge of content in those subjects.
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Scores Reported ELDA reports scores for each of the domains -- reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Two composite scores are also reported: an overall score formed from scores on all four subtests and a comprehension score formed from the listening and reading subtests.
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The technical reports contain detailed information about test specifica tions, item and form development, item and form analysis, equating, and standard setting. They also contain results of analyses to evaluate reliability and validity, including studies of bias and fairness (i.e., reviews by panels, studies of differential item functioning)
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Scores Reported The assessment reports scores separately for each domain -- listening, speaking, reading, writing -- and provides two composite scores. The oral score summarizes performance in listening and speaking, and the comprehension score summarizes performance in reading and writing.
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. The technical reports contain detailed information about test specifications, item and form development,
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. For the 2005 test administration, items from the Harcourt ELL item bank were initially used to construct the newly developed items for the test (including items initially developed for Stanford English Language Proficiency test forms)
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Performance Levels Four performance levels have been developed for the test: beginning, intermediate, advanced, and proficient. The technical manual provides descriptions only of the proficient level: Proficient Level: Reading • Students read English fluently and confidently and reflect upon a wide range of grade appropriate English language texts.
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Proficient Level: Listening • Students interpret important features of oral English language, at their grade level, relating to social academic topics and can discriminate between what is and what is not relevant. • Students distinguish, conceptually or linguistically, complex oral English lan guage expected of their grade level of fluent and/or native English speakers.
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Evidence of criterion-related validity was collected by examining the degree of correspondence between students' performance on the NYSELAT and performance on the state's English assessments: for the lower grades, the latter was the state's English language arts assessment used for NCLB account ability purposes; for the higher grades, it was the Regents English exam. STANFORD ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY TEST The Stanford English Language Proficiency Test (SELP)
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. For states that use a customized version, separate standard setting is done, and performance levels are adapted to the state needs.
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. Performancelevel descriptions were developed for each domain area and for each grade band: that is, there are 20 sets of descriptions for the five performance levels.
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Details about Washington's standard-setting methods are not described in the tech nical manual. Reliability and Validity Information about the technical qualities of the SELP assessment is provided in technical reports, some of which are available through state websites and some through the publisher.15 The technical report for the WLPT-II was obtained from the state Title III director (Pearson Education, 2010)
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The technical reports contain detailed information about test specifications, item and form development, item and form analysis, equating, and standard setting. They also contain results of analyses to evaluate reliability and validity and docu ment efforts to evaluate fairness issues.
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The standards outline the instruction that ELL students must receive to support their ability to develop academic ELP and acquire challenging academic knowledge and skills. Grade Bands The TELPAS reading tests have versions for the following grade bands: 2, 3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, and 10-12.
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According to the technical manual (Texas Education Agency, 2009c) listening and speaking receive less weight so that students do not attain a high composite proficiency rating before they acquire the English reading and writing proficiency needed to support their full potential for academic success.
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The technical report contains results of analyses to evaluate reliability and va lidity. Reliability analyses include the standard types of analyses used for tests with multiple-choice items (i.e., estimates of internal consistency)
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