Sharif Digital Repository

Validation is an important enterprise especially when the test to be validated is a high-stakes one the results of which bring about life-changing implications for the candidates (Roever, 2001). Messick’s (1988) notion of construct irrelevant factors is pertinent in test validation. Demographic variables like gender, field of study and age can affect test results and interpretations. A fair test needs to be neutral when it comes to construct irrelevant factors such as gender. Differential Item Functioning is a way of making sure that the test does not favor one group of test takers over the others. The current study investigated differential item functioning (DIF) in terms of gender in the... 

The present research aims to examine the influence of response format on the reliability and validity of grammaticality judgment tests, which will also reveal some facts about the superiority of each format. To this end, the grammaticality judgment (GJ) test developed by Gass (1994) was selected as the instrument of the study, which was manipulated in terms of the response format while the original items remained intact. Thus, in the first phase of the study, a multiple-choice GJ test (MCGJT) was constructed to be compared with the traditional form, i.e., the dichotomous type (DGJT). In an interval of a month, the two tests were administered to a group of 110 engineering-major BS students at... 

Traditional assumptions about assessment and learning have been challenged in higher education. Alternative types of assessment have been introduced to align to the students’ learning aims. Although, the growing body of literature of alternative types of assessment such as peer-assessment and self-assessment shed light on the advantages and benefits of embedding assessment in classroom activities, there is not absolute agreement on the consistency and accuracy of these types of assessment. To this aim, this study attempted to investigate the reliability and validity of self-assessment and peer-assessment of Iranian EFL learners’ written and oral production. The data was obtained from 32... 

The present study aims at examining interval scaling and magnitude estimation in grammaticality judgment tests in terms of reliability and validity. It also explores the probable impact of response formats on the participants’ performance. 30 Engineering students at Sharif university of Technology participated in this research. The instrument of the research is a grammaticality judgment test developed by Ellis (1990).Two computer-based programs were made in order to assess the two mentioned response formats in grammaticality judgment test. At the first phase of the study, the participants responded to the interval format and after an interval of one month, they attempted the second response... 

With the considerable increase in academic publications and ever-growing concern for academic writing, academic literacy, and plagiarism in recent years, investigating academic writers’ ‘authorial identity’ and ‘authorial voice’ has been of utmost importance in academic milieu. The main purposes of this study were achieved by going through five main phases including 1) hypothesizing a model of authorial identity, 2) developing and validating a questionnaire based on the model, 3) testing the model based on the questionnaire data, 4) searching for possible significant difference in authorial identity of academic writers from three different fields of English, Biology, and Engineering, and 5)...