Assessment plays a key role in shaping student learning, particularly in English-medium instruction (EMI) classrooms where students must process a non-native language to access and master content, underscoring the critical nature of Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). However, few assessment tools in higher education—particularly in EMI contexts—integrate academic language proficiency and cognitive skills within a single framework. This study addresses that gap by developing and validating a formative assessment rubric that combines CALP with Bloom’s revised taxonomy to evaluate EMI students’ presentations. The rubric provides explicit criteria for both slides and oral delivery, enabling students and instructors to assess how each cognitive level is demonstrated through academic English, using a calibrated 1–5 CALP scale and recommended weightings across cognitive domains. A three-round Delphi study involving 17 multidisciplinary experts in EMI, assessment, and bilingual education iteratively evaluated the 24 rubric items for practicality and importance on a 5-point Likert scale. High consensus was achieved for all but one descriptor (‘0 Points’), which was removed to ensure the tool’s practical validity and fairness. Other key refinements included making the cognitive-level weights “suggested” for disciplinary flexibility and adding an annotation prioritizing “effective communication” over language precision. By linking language use with higher-order thinking, the rubric promotes equitable and transparent assessment while also supporting students’ development of evaluative judgment and feedback literacy. The study contributes to higher education by offering a validated instrument for formative assessment in EMI, with implications for classroom practice, teacher training, and policy in multilingual education worldwide.
Chang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.