Creating the DIS Speaking Test for Placement: Considering Validity, Reliability, and Practicality

Placement testing presents a number of challenges for university language programs. Although there are a variety of benefits for creating one in-house, for practical purposes, commercial assessment tools are often chosen to accomplish the task of dividing students into groups of similar abilities. The goals and objectives for each program should inform the types of testing involved and appropriately delineating student abilities should typically be achieved through measuring all or a combination of several skills: reading, writing, speaking, listening, grammar and vocabulary. This paper details the steps used in the Department of International Studies (DIS) when creating the DIS Speaking Test for Placement, a speaking component integrated into the existing placement structure. This procedure is described and evaluated to show how developers tried to adhere to principles of reliability and validity in concert with practical issues. This paper does not purport that the test is in fact valid or reliable as further research will need to be conducted to better establish the degree to which those principles were achieved; however, the researchers do hope that this study can serve as an example of one department’s attempt, highlight their efforts to identify where immediate improvements can be made to benefit the test’s raters, and contribute to further dialogue about speaking placement test creation.