This book explores the appropriateness of Item Response Theory (IRT) in language testing. It investigates the dimensionality of the reading tests of the Cambridge First Certificate of English Test (FCE) and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), and the relative fit of 1, 2, 3 parameter IRT models in which the Rasch model is closely examined. Finding that the Rasch model fails to provide an adequate fit for the data, the study recommends that its predominant use in language testing be re-evaluated. Moreover, the 2 and 3 parameter models fit the data much better than the Rasch model. Finally, it shows that moderate departures from unidimensionality do t necessarily lead to an unacceptable model fit, r does the use of IRT in test development guarantee that the unidimensionality assumption will be satisfied.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Peter Lang Publishing Inc
ISBN-10
0820415731
ISBN-13
9780820415734
eBay Product ID (ePID)
129101878
Product Key Features
Author
Inn-Chull Choi
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Subject
Education & Teaching
Type
Textbook
Additional Product Features
Issn
1051-6670
Series Part/Volume Number
2
First Published
1992
Series Title
Theoretical Studies in Second Language Acquisition
Author Biography
The Author: Inn-Chull Choi earned a Bachelor of Engineering in industrial engineering at Korea University, Seoul, Korea. He earned a Master of Arts in TESL at the Division of English as a Second Language of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He majored in language testing during his doctoral study in SLATE (Second Language Acquisition & Teacher Education) in the Department of Educational Psychology at the same institution. He is currently a lecturer at Korea University and an editor of the College English Teachers Association of Korea, and a member of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and of the National Council on Measurement in Education. His areas of research interest include language testing and computer assisted language learning.