Juan L Trujillo

The Effect of Format and Language on the Test Scores of Bilinguals

Are the test scores obtained by bilinguals comparable to the test scores of U.S. students for whom the tests are designed?

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

As American colleges become more diverse, cultural
differences among students raise important concerns
about large scale assessment of students whose
primary language is not English. Are the scores
obtained by these students comparable to the scores
of U.S. students for whom the assessments are
designed? Score comparability ensures that the
meaning and interpretation of test scores are the
same for all groups of students. The purpose of the
present study was to examine the effects of lingual
background and item format on the test performance
of bilinguals. Contrary to what was expected, format
and lingual background did not collectively affect
the performance of bilinguals on the construction
items to a larger extent than on multiple-choice
items. The majority (88%) of the bilinguals used in
this study were students born and schooled in Puerto
Rico, where the constructed-response format is
traditionally used to test students throughout their
schooling. This study confirmed the findings of
Cooley & Leinhart (as cited in O Leary, 2001) and
O Leary (2001), that frequent exposure to a test
format will make a difference to performance.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller
• Seitenzahl: 56
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9783639127874
• ISBN-10: 3639127870
• Artikelnr.: 26032876

Autorenporträt

Juan L. Trujillo, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Measurement
and Statistics at Albany State University. His research
interests include psychometrics and applied statistics. He
received his PhD in Measurement and Statistics at the Florida
State University. Dr. Trujillo was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico.