Article published in:
ITL - International Journal of Applied LinguisticsVol. 168:1 (2017) ► pp. 33–69
The updated Vocabulary Levels Test
Developing and validating two new forms of the VLT
Stuart Webb | University of Western Ontario
Yosuke Sasao | Kyoto University
Oliver Ballance | Victoria University of Wellington
The Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation, 1983; Schmitt, Schmitt, & Clapham, 2001) indicates the word frequency level that should be used to select words for learning. The present study involves the development and validation of two new forms of the test. The new forms consist of five levels measuring knowledge of vocabulary at the 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, and 5000 levels. Items for the tests were sourced from Nation’s (2012) BNC/COCA word lists. The research involved first identifying quality items using the data from 1,463 test takers to create two equivalent forms, and then evaluating the forms with the data from a further 250 test takers. This study also makes an initial attempt to validate the new forms using Messick’s (1989, 1995) validity framework.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Creating new forms of the Vocabulary Levels Test
- Development of two equivalent forms
- Evaluation of the two equivalent forms
- Instrument
- Participants
- Equivalence of the two forms
-
Validation
- Content aspect of construct validity
- Substantive aspect of construct validity
- Structural aspect of construct validity
- Generalizability aspect of construct validity
- (1)Item calibration invariance
- (2)Person measure invariance
- (3)Reliability
- (4)Invariance across administrative contexts
- External aspects of construct validity
- Discussion
- Interpreting scores
- Limitations
- Conclusion
- Notes
-
References
This article is currently available as a sample article.
Published online: 05 October 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.168.1.02web
https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.168.1.02web
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