Benő Csapó

Technological Issues for Computer-Based Assessment

This chapter reviews the contribution of new information-communication technologies to the advancement of educational assessment. Improvements can be described in terms of precision in detecting the actual values of the observed variables, efficiency in collecting and processing information, and speed and frequency of feedback given to the participants and stakeholders. The chapter reviews previous research and development in two ways, describing the main tendencies in four continents (Asia, Australia, Europe and the US) as well as summarizing research on how technology advances assessment in certain crucial dimensions (assessment of established constructs, extension of assessment domains, assessment of new constructs and in dynamic situations). As there is a great variety of applications of assessment in education, each one requiring different technological solutions, the chapter classifies assessment domains, purposes and contexts and identifies the technological needs and solutions for each. The chapter reviews the contribution of technology to the advancement of the entire educational evaluation process, from authoring and automatic generation and storage of items, through delivery methods (Internet-based, local server, removable media, mini-computer labs) to forms of task presentation made possible with technology for response capture, scoring and automated feedback and reporting. Finally, the chapter identifies areas for which further research and development is needed (migration strategies, security, availability, accessibility, comparability, framework and instrument compliance) and lists themes for research projects feasible for inclusion in the Assessment and Teaching of Twenty-first Century Skills project.

The relationship between reading skills in early English as a foreign language and Hungarian as a first language

In recent years, similarly to other educational contexts in the European Union and other parts of the world, early foreign language programs have become widely spread in Hungary. This article looks into the relationship between Hungarian learners’ reading skills in English as a foreign language (L2) and in their first language (L1) Hungarian. We analyze data from two quantitative cross-sectional studies to explore how they interact. In the first one, participants were representative samples of Hungarian students (n > 4700 in Grade 6 and n > 3900 in Grade 8; age 12 and 14, respectively). Besides their proficiency in reading comprehension in L2, their reading skills were also tested in the mother tongue. The other study involved a representative sample of eighth graders (n = 247) in one particular county of Hungary (Baranya). This enquiry tapped into learners’ proficiency in reading comprehension in English and in Hungarian, but besides reading, their listening comprehension and writing skills were also assessed in the two languages. Both studies found evidence for the interdependence hypothesis: a close relationship was found between L1 and L2 performances. However, relationships between L2 skills proved to be stronger than those between L1 and L2 as well as between L1 skills.