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The issue and commentary papers in this "Perspectives" column address one use of assessments--speaking and writing proficiency assessments based on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL, 2012) Proficiency Guidelines--as a means for establishing and maintaining one important competency standard for world languages teachers who work in U.S. public schools. To be sure, as reflected in the insightful, critical, and poignant observations of the contributors, the issue is highstakes, along several dimensions: (a) would-be language teachers are held accountable to performance on a proficiency test as a pre-requisite to licensure; (b) teacher preparation programs are responsible for developing teachers' competencies, including language proficiency, and they are accredited based on their ability to do so; and (c) the professional organization of language teachers, ACTFL, has established recommended standards of language proficiency for qualified teachers, and the appropriateness, accuracy, and fairness of these standards is on the line.

Unruptured intracranial aneurysms (UIA) are common. For many the treatment risks outweigh their risk of subarachnoid haemorrhage and patients undergo surveillance imaging. There is little data to inform if and how to monitor UIAs resulting in widely varying practices. This study aimed to determine the current practice of unruptured UIA surveillance in the United Kingdom. A questionnaire was designed to address the themes of surveillance protocols for UIA including when surveillance is initiated, how frequently it is performed, and when it is terminated. Additionally, how aneurysm growth is managed and how clinically meaningful growth is defined were explored. The questionnaire was distributed to members of the British Neurovascular Group using probability-based cluster and non-probability purposive sampling methods. Responses were received from 30 of the 30 (100.0%) adult neurosurgical units in the United Kingdom of which 27 (90.0%) routinely perform surveillance for aneurysm growth. Only four units had a unit policy. The mean patient age up to which a unit would initiate follow-up of a low-risk UIA was 65.4 ± 9.0 years. The time points at which imaging is performed varied widely. There was an even split between whether units use a fixed duration of follow-up or an age threshold for terminating surveillance. Forty percent of units will follow-up patients more than 5 years from diagnosis. The magnitude in the change in size that was felt to constitute growth ranged from 1 to 3mm. No units routinely used vessel wall imaging although 27 had access to 3T MRI capable of performing it. There is marked heterogeneity in surveillance practices between units in the United Kingdom. This study will help units better understand their practice relative to their peers and provide a framework forplanning further research on aneurysm growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine current practices in the measurement of syntactic complexity to illustrate the need for more organic and sustainable practices in the measurement of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) in second language production. Through in-depth review of examples drawn from research on instructed second language acquisition, we identify and discuss challenges to the evidentiary logic that underlies current approaches. We also illuminate critical mismatches between the interpretations that researchers want to make and the complexity measures that they use to make them. Building from the case of complexity, we point to related concerns with impoverished operationalizations of multidimensional CAF constructs and the lack of attention to CAF as a dynamic and interrelated set of constantly changing subsystems. In conclusion, we offer suggestions for addressing these challenges, and we call for much closer articulation between theory and measurement as well as more central roles for multidimensionality and dynamicity in future CAF research.

Student evaluations of college instruction provide one critical source of information for the improvement of courses, curriculum, and practitioners' pedagogic efforts. Increasingly, online-delivered course evaluations are being put to use for eliciting student feedback in Web-based as well as face-to-face courses. Two studies were conducted in order to, first, understand the level of student responsiveness to existing online-delivered course evaluations at Northern Arizona University, and, second, to investigate strategies for improving evaluation response rates in a subset of Web-based and face-to-face courses. Findings indicated that a combination of simple and easily implemented strategies was associated with considerably higher student response rates to online-delivered course evaluations than had been attained in existing online-delivered evaluations. (Contains 3 tables and 5 figures.)

The C-test is a type of gap-filling test designed to efficiently measure second language proficiency. The typical C-test consists of several short paragraphs with the second half of every second word deleted. The words with deleted parts are considered as items nested within the corresponding paragraph. Given this testlet structure, it is commonly taken for granted that the C-test design may violate the local independence assumption. However, this assumption has not been fully investigated in the C-test research to date, including the evaluation of alternative psychometric models (i.e., unidimensional and multidimensional) to calibrate and score the C-test. This study addressed each of these issues using a large data set of responses to an English-language C-test. First, we examined the local item independence assumption via multidimensional item response theory (IRT) models, Yen's Q3, and Jackknife Slope Index. Second, we evaluated several IRT models to determine optimal approaches to scoring the C-test. The results support an interpretation of unidimensionality for the C-test items within a paragraph, with only minor evidence of local item dependence. Furthermore, the two-parameter logistic (2PL) IRT model was found to be the most appropriate model for calibrating and scoring the C-test. Implications for designing, scoring, and analyzing C-tests are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informing parents that their child has a diagnosis of Down syndrome (DS) is a common example of the delivery of unexpected or difficult news. Expectations and life planning will change, and if detected prenatally, discussions might include the option of pregnancy termination. Medical school curricula currently include training in breaking unexpected news; however, it is difficult to teach and assess. We use the perspectives of clinicians, educators, and a medical student who is the parent of a child with DS to frame a discussion on teaching, practicing, and assessing communication of difficult news in human genetics during medical school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral proficiency ratings, based on the ACTFL Guidelines and derived from live or simulated oral proficiency interviews (SOPIs), enjoy widespread use in the United States. In particular, college foreign language departments have increasingly adopted oral proficiency ratings as a way of establishing standards for language or graduation requirements. In the study reported here, the authors explored the intended uses of proficiency-based standards in foreign language departments and reviewed the research on which specific ACTFL-level standards are based. They then examined the results of more than 100 SOPIs administered across all levels of instruction within one German foreign language department. The findings suggest that recommended proficiency standards may underestimate the potential and actual achievements of German language learners and miss other valued learning outcomes. The implications of these findings for the valid use of oral proficiency ratings in collegiate settings are discussed. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Summarizes findings from investigations into the development and use of a prototype English language task-based performance test. Data included performances by 90 examinees in 13 complex and skill-integrative tasks. Findings indicated that the task-based test could inform intended inferences about examinees' abilities to accomplish specific tasks as well as inferences about examinees' likely abilities within a domain of tasks. (Author/VWL)