Development and Validity Evidence of a Spanish Academic Vocabulary Test for the Social Sciences in Higher Education

To assess undergraduates’ academic vocabulary knowledge within their disciplinary field, we developed the Spanish Academic Vocabulary Test for the Social Sciences (TEVA-SOC). The instrument’s design involved selecting words through disciplinary corpus analysis, professors’ judgment, and expert review. A 100-item multiple-choice test was constructed and administered to 374 university students from 11 programs at a Chilean university. After examining the item functioning with the Rasch model, we reduced the test to 58 items. The analyses provided evidence of a unidimensional internal structure and expected associations with sociodemographic and reading variables. Test scores showed good reliability, with high measurement precision at the lower end of the ability scale. These results support using TEVA-SOC scores to identify students with limited academic vocabulary who may benefit from targeted support, and to inform instruction. The study extends academic vocabulary assessment, largely developed for learners of English, to the vocabulary relevant to a disciplinary area (social sciences) and to native Spanish-speaking students in higher education.