English Language Education John Read Editor Post-admission Language Assessment of University Students English Language Education Volume 6 Series Editors Chris Davison, The University of New South Wales, Australia Xuesong Gao, The University of Hong Kong, China Editorial Advisory Board Stephen Andrews, University of Hong Kong, China Anne Burns, University of New South Wales, Australia Yuko Goto Butler, University of Pennsylvania, USA Suresh Canagarajah, Pennsylvania State University, USA Jim Cummins, OISE, University of Toronto, Canada Christine C. M. Goh, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technology University, Singapore Margaret Hawkins, University of Wisconsin, USA Ouyang Huhua, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China Andy Kirkpatrick, Griffi th University, Australia Michael K. Legutke, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany Constant Leung, King’s College London, University of London, UK Bonny Norton, University of British Columbia, Canada Elana Shohamy, Tel Aviv University, Israel Qiufang Wen, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China Lawrence Jun Zhang, University of Auckland, New Zealand More information about this series at h ttp://www.springer.com/series/11558 John Read Editor Post-admission Language Assessment of University Students Editor John Read School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics University of Auckland Auckland , New Zealand ISSN 2213-6967 ISSN 2213-6975 (electronic) English Language Education ISBN 978-3-319-39190-8 ISBN 978-3-319-39192-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39192-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948219 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 T his work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. T he use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. T he publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland Pref ace T his volume grew out of two conference events that I organised in 2013 and 2014. The fi rst was a symposium at the Language Testing Research Colloquium in Seoul, South Korea, in July 2013 with the title “Exploring the diagnostic potential of post- admission language assessments in English-medium universities”. The other event was a colloquium entitled “Exploring post-admission language assessments in uni- versities internationally” at the Annual Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) in Portland, Oregon, USA, in March 2014. The AAAL symposium attracted the attention of the Springer commissioning editor, Jolanda Voogt, who invited me to submit a proposal for an edited volume of the papers presented at one conference or the other. In order to expand the scope of the book, I invited Edward Li and Avasha Rimbiritch, who were not among the original p resenters, to prepare additional chapters. Several of the chapters acquired an extra author along the way to provide specialist expertise on some aspects of the content. I want to express my great appreciation fi rst to the authors for the rich and stimu- lating content of their papers. On a more practical level, they generally met their deadlines to ensure that the book would appear in a timely manner and they will- ingly undertook the necessary revisions of their original submissions. Whatever my virtues as an editor, I found that as an author I tended to trail behind the others in completing my substantive contributions to the volume. At Springer, I am grateful to Jolanda Voogt for seeing the potential of this topic for a published volume and encouraging us to develop it. Helen van der Stelt has been a most effi cient editorial assistant and a pleasure to work with. I would also like to thank the series editors, Chris Davison and Andy Gao, for their ongoing sup- port and encouragement. In addition, two anonymous reviewers of the draft manu- script gave positive feedback and very useful suggestions for revisions. v vi Preface The concerns addressed in this book are of increasing importance to English- medium universities and other institutions which are admitting students from diverse language backgrounds. We hope that these contributions will help to clarify the issues and offer a range of concrete solutions to the challenge of ensuring that students’ language and literacy needs are being met. Auckland , New Zealand John Read April 2016 Contents Part I Introduction 1 Some Key Issues in Post-Admission Language Assessment . . . . . . . . . . 3 John Read Part II Implementing and Monitoring Undergraduate Assessments 2 Examining the Validity of a Post-Entry Screening Tool Embedded in a Specific Policy Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Ute Knoch , Cathie Elder , and Sally O’Hagan 3 Mitigating Risk: The Impact of a Diagnostic Assessment Procedure on the First-Year Experience in Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Janna Fox , John Haggerty , and Natasha Artemeva 4 The Consequential Validity of a Post-Entry Language Assessment in Hong Kong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Edward Li 5 Can Diagnosing University Students’ English Proficiency Facilitate Language Development? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Alan Urmston , Michelle Raquel , and Vahid Aryadoust Part III Addressing the Needs of Doctoral Students 6 What Do Test-Takers Say? Test-Taker Feedback as Input for Quality Management of a Local Oral English Proficiency Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Xun Yan, Suthathip Ploy Thirakunkovit, Nancy L. Kauper, and April Ginther 7 Extending Post-Entry Assessment to the Doctoral Level: New Challenges and Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 John Read and Janet von Randow vii viii Contents Part IV Issues in Assessment Design 8 Vocabulary Recognition Skill as a Screening Tool in English-as-a-Lingua-Franca University Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Thomas Roche , Michael Harrington , Yogesh Sinha , and Christopher Denman 9 Construct Refinement in Tests of Academic Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Albert Weideman , Rebecca Patterson , and Anna Pot 10 Telling the Story of a Test: The Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students (TALPS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Avasha Rambiritch and Albert Weideman Part V Conclusion 11 Reflecting on the Contribution of Post- Admission Assessments . . . . 219 John Read Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Contributors Natasha Artemeva S chool of Linguistics and Language Studies, C arleton University , Ottawa , Canada Vahid Aryadoust National Institute of Education , Nanyang Technological University , Singapore , Republic of Singapore Christopher Denman Humanities Research Center , Sultan Qaboos University , Muscat , Oman Cathie Elder Language Testing Research Centre , University of Melbourne , Melbourne , Australia Janna Fox School of Linguistics and Language Studies , Carleton University , Ottawa , Canada April Ginther Department of English , Purdue University , West Lafayette , IN , USA John Haggerty D epartment of Language and Literacy Education, U niversity of British Columbia , Vancouver , Canada Michael Harrington S chool of Languages and Cultures, U niversity of Queensland, Brisbane , Australia Nancy L. Kauper Oral English Profi ciency Program , Purdue University , West Lafayette , IN , USA Ute Knoch Language Testing Research Centre , University of Melbourne , Melbourne , Australia Edward Li Center for Language Education , The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology , Hong Kong , China Sally O’Hagan Language Testing Research Centre , University of Melbourne , Melbourne , Australia ix