This year, the 25th MwALT (Midwest Association of Language Testers) Conference was hosted by DuoLingo in Pittsburgh, PA, from October 4th-5th. The MwALT conference focuses on balancing validity, reliability, and practicality in test design. This year's presentations highlight the challenge of ensuring accurate and consistent results while considering practical concerns like cost, time, and fairness.
In light of the theme “Bridging Competing Priorities in Language Assessment”, many representatives from UIUC presented their work:
Professor Eunice Eunhee Jang, UIUC graduate and current University of Toronto faculty member, gave the opening plenary: Enhancing Learning through the Integration of Diagnostic and Dynamic Assessment via Technological Innovations. This talk explored how integrating assessment feedback can improve education, and discussed the challenges of effectively using technology in assessments and proposed strategies for enhancing learning-oriented evaluation.
Huiying Cai (PhD Student), Ping-Lin Chuang (PhD), Yulin Pan (PhD Student) and Mingyue Huo (PhD Student) presented their work A feature-based machine learning approach to understanding item difficulty in L2 listening comprehension tests. This work focused on predicting item difficulty in second language (L2) listening assessments using a machine learning model. It revealed meaningful relationships between item difficulty and factors like lexical complexity, pronunciation, and test focus, providing evidence for construct validity.
The closing plenary session, Flexibility, Sensitivity, and Sustainability: Local Language Testing in the Technology-infused Era, was given by UIUC's own Dr. Xun Yan, and addressed the challenges and opportunities facing local language testing. Compared to large-scale tests, local tests benefit from greater flexibility indevelopment and implementation but must navigate competing priorities in constrained contexts. Local tests require ongoing adaptation to maintain their relevance and effectiveness, especially as technological innovations reshape the landscape.
Additionally, recent PhD Graduate Ping-Lin Chuang won the Best Student Presentation award for her research Eye-tracking insights into rater behavior: Comparing experienced and novice raters in L2 writing assessment. The study investigated the cognitive processes involved in scoring and decision-making for L2 writing assessments. The results highlight the cognitive differences between experienced and novice raters, with potential implications for improving rater training and assessment practices in L2 writing evaluation.
Congratulations to all of these researchers!
MwALT’s long-standing mission is to promote professional growth, provide leadership, and support language assessment across educational levels. You can learn more about the community from the Midwest Association of Language Testers.
Language Testers from UIUC (Photo by Tom O’Connor https://tomoconnorphoto.pixieset.com/mwalt/ )
