Towards a profile-based writing scale for a local post-admission ESL writing assessment

Post-admission language tests tend to have a restricted range of proficiency levels among test-takers due to considerations made during the admission selection process.Although range restriction can present challenges for proficiency-focused assessment,it can also bring opportunities to zoom in on fine-grained performance profiles of test-takers.This study reports on the validation of a profile-based rating scale for an ESL writing placement test in a US university.The profile-based rating scale was created by employing a three-staged,hybrid scale development approach,to provide not only accurate placement decisions but also fine-grained diagnostic information regarding ESL students’writing performance profiles.The scale strikes a balance between argument development and lexico-grammar,to better account for the range of writing performances among test-takers.To gather validity evidence for the profile-based rating scale,this study employs a sequential,mixed-methods approach to examine the quality of test-taker performances across profiles and rater perceptions on the scale.Nine certified raters were recruited to conduct independent evaluations of lexicogrammar and argumentation on a sample of 150 test-taker performances.These evaluations were subjected to many-facet Rasch measurement analysis to examine the differences across writing performance profiles included in the rating scale.Next,semi-structured,follow-up interviews were conducted with the raters,to complement the quantitative findings on the usability and effectiveness of the scale.The findings provide supportive evidence for the validity of the profile-based rating scale.I argue that by focusing on performance profiles,post-admission language tests can strengthen the alignment across curriculum,instruction,and assessment in ESL writing programs.

APPROXIMATE POWER OF HETEROSCEDASTICITY TEST IN NONLINEAR MODELS WITH ARIMA（0,1,0） ERRORS

This paper presents an approach for estimating power of the score test, based on an asymptotic approximation to the power of the score test under contiguous alternatives. The method is applied to the problem of power calculations for the score test of heteroscedasticity in European rabbit data （Ratkowsky, 1983）. Simulation studies are presented which indicate that the asymptotic approximation to the finite-sample situation is good over a wide range of parameter configurations.

Building an EAP Assessment Framework for Chinese EFL Learners of Finance and Economics Majors at University Level

In the context of offering localized and specified English for Academic Purposes(EAP)courses for university level Chinese EFL learners,this article explores the issues of EAP assessment for finance and economics majors.Firstly,the study attempts to define the construct of EAP assessment for Chinese EFL learners of finance and economics majors at university level based on prior research literature on EAP assessment models and multiple stakeholders’needs on EAP skills in universities of finance and economics.Assessment standards of academic English for finance and economics purposes,then,are discussed by adopting IELTS Academic testing framework in line with localized course syllabus.Finally,an EAP assessment framework for Chinese EFL learners of finance and economics majors is proposed in an attempt to develop localized and university-specific assessment framework to generate effective feedback to EAP courses and bring about positive wash-back for EAP learners of finance and economics majors in university level.

A Study of Writing Test in CET-4

The paper discusses the ＂Writing Test＂ in College English Test - Band Four in two aspects. One is the design of the ＂Writing＂ form; the other is the scoring process. From the discussion the paper comes to a conclusion that the ＂Writing Test＂ in CET-4 should be reformed in two ways： the single style of the ＂Writing＂ structure should be changed to various styles in design, and the ＂global scoring＂ principle used in marking the writing should be changed to ＂local scoring＂. At last, the author suggests some ways of how to put the reforming into reality,

SOME IMPROVED PROJECTED QUASI-NEWTON ALGORITHMS AND THEIR CONVERGENCE Ⅱ.LOCAL CONVERGENCE RATE AND NUMERICAL TESTS

For the improved two-sided projected quasi-Newton algorithms, which were presented in PartI, we prove in this paper that they are locally one-step or two-step superlinearly convergent. Numerical tests are reported thereafter. Results by solving a set of typical problems selectedfrom literature have demonstrated the extreme importance of these modifications in making Nocedal& Overton's original methon practical. Furthermore, these results show that the improved algoritnmsare very competitive in comparison with some highly praised sequential quadratic programmingmethods.

Projection-based High-dimensional Sign Test

This article is concerned with the high-dimensional location testing problem.For highdimensional settings,traditional multivariate-sign-based tests perform poorly or become infeasible since their Type I error rates are far away from nominal levels.Several modifications have been proposed to address this challenging issue and shown to perform well.However,most of modified sign-based tests abandon all the correlation information,and this results in power loss in certain cases.We propose a projection weighted sign test to utilize the correlation information.Under mild conditions,we derive the optimal direction and weights with which the proposed projection test possesses asymptotically and locally best power under alternatives.Benefiting from using the sample-splitting idea for estimating the optimal direction,the proposed test is able to retain type-I error rates pretty well with asymptotic distributions,while it can be also highly competitive in terms of robustness.Its advantage relative to existing methods is demonstrated in numerical simulations and a real data example.