| In order to implement an effective foreign language program it is very important to determine student placement based on their true language knowledge as opposed to how much "seat time" instruction they have had with. This dissertation describes the design and development of a placement listening exam and investigates validity issues using Bachman's (2005) framework of an "assessment use argument." The purpose of this study is twofold: First, to interpret the listening scores for the SLE as a way to know what test-takers can do and, second, to place students in Spanish classes.;The test development included investigations of internal consistency, IRT analyses, ANOVA analyses, and planned comparisons for content relevance, criterion-relatedness, and content coverage in order to support the construct validity, and feedback analyses for the post-test study. Since the purpose of this design is to eventually produce a functional exam, investigations of standard setting procedures, setting final cut scores and participants' feedback analyses are also included.;This study concludes that despite a few exceptions that deal with specific linguistic features, the SLE tests effectively Spanish proficiency based on grammatical, discourse and sociolinguistic features. The SLE demonstrated that different proficiency groups of test-takers performed differently. Participants with more listening ability demonstrated higher proficiency levels making the correct placement according to real abilities possible. The qualitative analyses of the students' performance revealed that the SLE is a good tool to assess student listening ability based on impact, practicality and authenticity. Despite the fact that the cut scores derived from the bookmark and borderline methods did not always agree with each other in assigning students into different levels, the judges' feedback demonstrated the validity of the standard setting procedures employed in this study. |
