Quinsigamond Community College's Site-Specific Assessment

Christina Hebert, Anne Burke, Linda Gosselin, Arpi Hedeshian
Quinsigamond Community College's Adult Community Learning Center

The new site-specific ESL assessment test that follows was developed in response to our instructors' concerns about the accuracy and scoring of our previous site-specific assessment test. The original test didn't cover the placement or assessment of the SPL 7-10 level students. With the addition of four higher-level ESL classes, instructors and Learning Support Specialists needed to be able to accurately assess and place students who fell into that category.

There was also a need for a test that was more objective and more standardized in its scoring. The older assessment, with its informal scoring, was adequate for assessing and placing students at the SPL 0-2, 3-4, and 5-6 levels, but the instructors began asking for more specific information about their student's oral, reading, writing, and grammar skills. These concerns and issues prompted our ESL instructors to create the new test.

Anne Burke, ESL Instructor, SPL 0-2 (beginner), Linda Gosselin, ESL Instructor, SPL 5-6 (intermediate), and Arpi Hedeshian, ESL Instructor, 7-10 (advanced) formed a committee to design a new assessment test. They all agreed that it was time for a new test and the contents of the old test needed to be upgraded. They held several meetings during the summer. They looked over samples of tests being used in the ABE program at QCC and standardized and alternative tests being used by other programs. They used the standardized BEST Test as a guide to create their new test. They wanted to make sure their new test covered all the skill areas. They also surveyed all the ESL instructors and Learning Support Specialists to ask if the current test placed their students accurately and if the scoring gave enough information about their students' oral, reading, writing, and grammar skills. They asked for suggestions to revise the current assessment test.

The new test still assesses the four skill areas (oral, grammar, reading, writing), but the administering and scoring of the test provides more accurate placement and scoring.

The new assessment test was piloted during the summer of 2000 and is still being piloted throughout the 2000-2001 school year. The initial committee will review and revise the test this spring if necessary.

Originally published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 13 (Spring 2001),
SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 2001.

Funding support for the publication of this document on the Web provided in part by the Ohio State Literacy Resource Center as part of the LINCS Assessment Special Collection.