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Maintaining Score Quality on the Enhanced TOEFL iBT Test TOEFL iBT SEM ELA

Author(s):
Gu, Lixiong; Li, Shuhong; Li, Tongyun; Norris, John M.
Publication Year:
2023
Report Number:
RM-23-05
Source:
ETS Research Memorandum
Document Type:
Report
Page Count:
13
Subject/Key Words:
TOEFL iBT, Test Scores, English Language Assessment (ELA), Academic Writing, Writing Ability, Writing Assessment, Writing Evaluation, Writing Fluency, Writing, Reading, Reading Ability, Reading Assessment, Reading Comprehension, Reading Fluency, Fairness, Validity, Reliability, Standard Error of Measurement

Abstract

Beginning in July 2023, ETS and the TOEFL program launched a new version of the TOEFL iBT test that featured several important updates and enhancements, including a shortened reading section, replacement of the independent writing task with a shorter and more contextualized opinion task called Writing for an Academic Discussion, and removal of unscored pretest items. This memorandum reports on analyses of key psychometric properties of the TOEFL iBT test scores conducted prior to the launch of the enhanced version of the test. Findings revealed sufficiently high levels of reliability and low standard error of measurement values for the reading and writing section scores. In addition, we describe new procedures for ensuring listening and reading section item quality to be deployed during development and after test administration in lieu of pretesting.

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