Never had I imagined myself an event organiser but here we are — looking at the feedback forms gathered from the event, looking at the results of our standard setting event, planning our next releases. In this 3-day event we were able to discuss how a Minimally Competent Person should be defined in CEFR terms, how to connect cut scores to CEFR descriptors, how the questions in DPT are designed, and most importantly, we were able to have meaningful discussions on the validity of items in this digital placement test.
Perhaps even more significant was that the item reviewing process and voting were conducted entirely digitally and in real time. Panelists were able to look at items on screen and record their verdict using their devices. This fits exactly with exactly our philosophy for DPT — no more paper, no more heavy administrative work.
But what did the panelists think of the experience? Here is some of the feedback we got from them:
“[I] got more familiar with CEFR & Clarity’s new approach to testing.” President Magaret Chan, Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages, Taiwan
“All aims achieved plus a good time and good collaboration” Thomas Jones, Brock Solution’s Agency, UK
“[I like the] CEFR familiarisation activity” Prof. Gunadi H Sulistyo, State University of Malang, Indonesia
“[I like the] range of experience of attendees, dialogic nature of response examination” Dr. Matthew Wallace, University of Macau, Macau
So, what’s next? The DPT team will now immerse themselves in the results from the standard setting, cross referencing them with the reports from previous data analysis. More fine-tuning of the test will be scheduled, and more new content will be added before September this year. There will be plenty of exciting things with DPT very soon.
We will be sharing with you a detailed report from the standard setting next month. Please look out for it. Visit our Linkedin page here to watch what Sean McDonald and Laura Edwards, our colleagues from telc Language Tests, said about the event.
Further reading:
Putting a test “to the test” — how to make it valid and reliable
Overview of item analysis
About Dynamic Placement Test
