Commentaries on Validity Issues in Foreign and Second Language Assessment

Abstract

For this issue of Teachers College, Columbia University Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguists, we invited three contributors to extensively comment on validity issues in second or foreign language assessment. Jorge Beltran looks at the English Language Arts Regents Exam, a test widely used in the K-12 system in New York. He takes an analytical approach in evaluating the exam in light of current validity frameworks in order to discuss the possible threats to validity and its impact on English language learners taking the exam. Next, Andrea Durkis looks at language assessments used as part of the citizenship process in France. While reviewing its history over the past twenty years, she examines validity issues through the lens of Kane’s framework. Finally, Heidi Liu Banerjee further explores fairness, an important test quality essential to the discussion of validity and its conceptualization in relation to Kane’s framework.