Lynda Taylor

Recommending a Nursing-Specific Passing Standard for the IELTS Examination

Licensure testing programs in the United States (e.g., nursing) face an increasing challenge of measuring the competency of internationally trained candidates, both in relation to their clinical competence and their English language competence. To assist with the latter, professional licensing bodies often adopt well-established and widely available international English language proficiency measures. In this context, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) sought to develop a nursing-specific passing standard on the International English Language Testing System that U.S. jurisdictions could consider in their licensure decisions for internationally trained candidates. Findings from a standard setting exercise were considered by NCSBNs Examination Committee in conjunction with other relevant information to produce a legally defensible passing standard on the test. This article reports in detail on the standard setting exercise conducted as part of this policy-making process; it describes the techniques adopted, the procedures followed, and the outcomes obtained. The study is contextualized within the current literature on standard setting. The latter part of the article describes the nature of the policy-making process to which the study contributed and discusses some of the implications of including a language literacy test as part of a licensure testing program.

General Language Proficiency (GLP): Reflections on the “Issues Revisited” from the Perspective of a UK Examination Board

Looking back to the language testing world of the 1980s in the United Kingdom, we need to be aware that how we perceive or remember ourselves to have been then—whether as individual language testing academics or as corporate language testing organisations—will be shaped by multiple influences. Although we may have been present at and shared in the 1980 discussions, our recollections of how things were then and our views on how they have (or have not) changed will vary. What follows in this article offers a predominantly personal perspective. It is the view as I perceive it, in light of my own journey as a UK-based language teacher and tester over the past 30 years, seen from where I stand now as a consultant to a large international examining board in the United Kingdom. It is also therefore an institutional perspective, drawing on a long association with one particular language testing organisation. Just as my perspective is from the position of only one language testing institution, I am also only one individual from within that institution. There will undoubtedly be other stances, voices, and perspectives that are equally valid and relevant from within the same institution.

Telling our story: reflections on the place of learning, transparency, responsibility and collaboration in the language testing narrative.

This article is based upon a presentation given at the Language Testing Research Colloquium (LTRC) held in Denver, Colorado, in March 2009. That presentation reviewed some of the recent attempts from within our research community to “tell the story” of our field over several decades. It explored how the discourse of these narratives contributes to the construction of our identity in the present age and examined some of the images and metaphors we have used to help us make sense of our experience. The threads of learning, transparency, responsibility, and collaboration (which formed the subthemes for the LTRC 2009 conference) were traced to discern how they weave together into a complex and colourful tapestry that illustrates “our story”—a story that may help us better understand who we are as a discipline and community, what has shaped us in the past, and how we might evolve in the future.