Liying Cheng

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• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Queen's University

This study explores the contextual factors mediating the washback effects of Malaysia's learning-oriented English language assessment reform, implemented at the lower-secondary level. The reform aims to balance formative and summative assessments to foster meaningful learning, reduce test-oriented teaching, and enhance critical thinking skills. Emp...

As the title and theme for JALT2024 is Moving JALT into the Future: Opportunity, Diversity, and Excellence, this short piece focuses on the challenges and benefits of diversity that we have experienced throughout our personal and professional lives. Based on a combined total of more than 75 years living as “visible minorities” in England, the USA,...

Young learners' English (YLE) tests have become increasingly prevalent among and important to Chinese English learners and their parents. In China, parents are actively involved in their children's education and test-taking decisions, and their participation has given rise to a series of social impacts. Although parent involvement has received incr...

This article reviews recent literature (2011–present) on the automated scoring (AS) of writing and speaking. Its purpose is to first survey the current research on automated scoring of language, then highlight how automated scoring impacts the present and future of assessment, teaching, and learning. The article begins by outlining the general back...

Principals play a key leadership role in school effectiveness and student success; however, one area that has received relatively little attention so far is principals’ embedded understanding of assessment and grading within the educational context where they work. We examined 141 Chinese school principals’ conceptions of assessment and grading pra...

Principals play a key leadership role in school effectiveness and student success; however, one area that has received relatively little attention so far is principals’ embedded understanding of assessment and grading within the educational context where they work. We examined 141 Chinese school principals’ conceptions of assessment and grading pra...

In China, under the influence of examination-driven culture and teacher-centered ways of learning, students’ self-regulated learning (SRL) capabilities, self-efficacy, and actual English proficiency are greatly hindered. Given this situation, the Chinese Ministry of Education has promulgated the use of formative assessment in the College English cu...

In this paper, we set out to explore the world’s first major standardised examination system. In the field of language testing and assessment, works such as measured words (Spolsky, 1995), measured constructs (Weir, Vidakovic & Galaczi, 2013), and Cambridge English exams — the first hundred years (Hawkey & Milanovic, 2013) all point to the fact tha...

This study set out to explore English for academic purposes (EAP) student perceptions of their experiences at a university in western Canada. A qualitative approach was used, with 17 students completing a questionnaire toward the end of their EAP program, and one of those students taking part in an interview approximately one year later. Data from...

This article presents a historical and contemporary account of Lithuania’s national public education assessment system and its transformation since the country’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. We explore how the external examination system has developed in relation to ongoing curriculum reforms over the last 30 years, an...

This study explores beginning teacher candidates’ approaches to grading in relation to their broader conceptions of assessment through a survey research design. 248 Canadian teacher candidates responded to two scales: Teachers’ Approaches to Grading (TAG) and Teachers’ Conceptions of Assessment (TCOA). The results of factor analysis showed that tea...

Formative assessment practices have been theoretically connected to the development of self-regulation with mounting empirical evidence. Co-regulation is the process whereby a more capable individual (e.g., teacher or peer) attunes the behaviours, emotions, or cognitive processes of an individual (a student) to align with goals or expectations and...

Canada has one of the world’s largest immigrant populations, with one in five people in Canada born outside the country. Among these immigrants, a great majority started their lives in Canada working in entry-level jobs. This study examined the English language use and communication challenges among these new Canadian immigrants in entry-level work...

In this chapter, we review the conceptualizations of English from Standard English to English as a lingua franca. Using this lense, we evaluate the current test design and testing practices in terms of construct representation in international environments (i.e., Im & Cheng 2019) and a university setting (i.e., Jabeen 2016). We problematize the cha...

Anxiety is a well-documented construct traditionally defined in the educational literature as a cognitive phenomenon that can affect second language performance and achievement (Cassady & Johnson, 2002). Clinical anxiety is related to physiological manifestations, such as increased galvanic skin response and heart rate, dizziness, nausea, and feeli...

Grades are the dominant currency that enables student migration patterns; in particular, the recent upsurge of Chinese students studying and settling in Canada. Given the use of grades for student promotion, mobilization, and admission into educational programs internationally, there is an urgent need to understand the validity of grades across lea...

Internationally educated nurses’ (IENs) English language proficiency is critical to professional licensure as communication is a key competency for safe practice. The Canadian English Language Benchmark Assessment for Nurses (CELBAN) is Canada’s only Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) referenced examination used in the context of healthcare regulat...

Open access: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0265532220957298

Highlighting marginalized but significant perspectives about the sociopolitical essence of English language tests and testing processes worldwide, this book explores the social considerations of testing theories and practices from a critical perspective. Investigating concerns surrounding power inequalities, The Sociopolitics of English Language Te...

From the perspectives of newcomers to Canada using English an as additional language (EAL), this study explores how newcomers’ interlocutors might impede workplace communication. Six participants speaking EAL and coming from a variety of language backgrounds shared their workplace experiences. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured...

Effective test preparation for high-stakes English language tests is crucial for candidates whose futures depend on attaining a particular score. An increasing number of studies have investigated the role of test preparation; however, these studies have been exclusively conducted in individual contexts and countries around the world. This study dra...

Purpose and background The purpose of this paper is to critically review the traditional and contemporary validation frameworks—the content, criterion, and construct validations; the evidence-gathering; the socio-cognitive model; the test usefulness; and an argument-based approach—as well as empirical studies using an argument-based approach to val...

Please visit the following link to get access to the article at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0265532219828252

Over the past three decades, test impact has been one source of consequential evidence for test validation. Subsequently, attention to test impact in language assessment research has been steadily growing. Existing studies, however, tended to focus on the influences of testing on teaching and learning within the classroom (often termed as "washback...

The current trend towards globalization, immigration, and internationalization of schools and universities around the world has led to the increased use of grades across educational systems. Given the use of grades for student promotion, mobilization, and admission into educational programs internationally, there is an urgent need to understand how...

This study examined the relationships between students' foreign language classroom anxiety and cognitive test anxiety and their College English Test Band 4 (CET-4) performance. A questionnaire was distributed to 921 Chinese university students to understand the nature and degree of the examined relationships. Follow-up interviews with twelve studen...

Canada is one of the few countries with the world’s largest foreign-born immigrant population. One in every three newcomers to Canada is young people under 24 years of age. More than a third of young adults in Canada are from families where both parents are from another country. A thorough understanding of the relationship between immigrant student...

In the 21st century, the number of multilingual users of English will far surpass the number of native speakers of English (McKay, 2002). Indeed the number has already surpassed that of native speakers, if we count the number of people who use English as a second and foreign language worldwide. According to an estimate , there are about 200–500 mil...

Given the longstanding role of grades in education, and their increased use for high-stakes decisions including student mobility, admission, selection, and accountability, this paper presents a systematic review of grading policies across all 10 Canadian provinces and 3 territories. In total, 23 policies were inductively analyzed for their articula...

As one of the most high-stakes practices in education, grading has been the subject of significant debate and research over the years. However, it is only recently that researchers have started to explore the teaching and learning values embedded in grades by looking at grading policies. This study examined grading polices in China by focusing on t...

Washback, impact, and consequences refer to the educational phenomenon when testing (often large-scale and high-stakes), specifically the uses of test scores and the decisions made based on those scores, influence those stakeholders associated with such testing. Washback, impact, and consequences are used in different fields of research, and these...

If we, as educators, are to first and foremost ‘do no harm’ (Taylor and Nolen, 2008, p. 10), we need to continue to focus on the relationship between teaching, learning and assessment, and rethink some of the assumptions that we hold about testing and assessment. The academic race to be the smartest, most skilled student in the class does not place...

The research literature is full of examples of how better understanding of our students’ language learning experiences can improve the impact and effectiveness of our teaching and, as a result, enhance learning (see, for example, Gottlieb, 2006; Ivaniˇc, 2010; Zamel and Spack, 2004). In Chapter 5, we discuss assessment approaches and practices that...

As we discussed in Chapter 5, the research literature is full of examples of how better understanding of our students’ language learning experiences can improve the impact and effectiveness of our teaching and, as a result, enhance learning (see, for example, Gottlieb, 2006; Ivaniˇc, 2010; Zamel and Spack, 2004). In this chapter, we again discuss a...

It should be noted, that there is no one way to design a test, but there are commonly agreed standards that should apply to all testing activities, whether they occur within your classroom as a result of your own test development, across a programme, a system, a nation, or around the world. In the sections below, we will ‘walk through’ a process of...

As we discussed in Chapter 1, teachers routinely deal with large-scale testing which is external to their classrooms, often with more at stake (or higher stakes). They routinely engage in small-scale testing, which is internal to their classrooms and measures achievement at the end of a unit or course with less at stake or (with lower stakes). Such...

Assessment plays an essential role in language teaching and learning. The day-to-day assessment of student learning is unquestionably one of the teacher’s most important, complex and demanding tasks. As teachers, we are the principal agents of assessment, so we need to ensure the quality of classroom assessment practices and to use these practices...

This chapter addresses some of the most challenging aspects in teaching: deciding what to teach, what to assess and how to align assessment in the classroom to the learning goals and outcomes for our students. Such goals and outcomes may be explicitly defined for a whole programme by benchmarks and standards, curriculum and external tests, or impli...

This book makes a unique contribution to classroom assessment literature, linking teacher-friendly examples to scholarly work and current research in the field, and providing comprehensive, hands-on information on core concepts in accessible terms. Examples of real activities and questions for reflection and discussion aim to enrich understanding.

Test scores derived from large‐scale testing are believed by many as an appropriate way to hold educators accountable for students' academic achievement. Test preparation has thus been widespread both inside and outside of schools and educational institutions aiming to increase students' test scores. However, the appropriateness of test preparation...

English as an international language (EIL) refers to the use of English as a means by which people from different parts of the world communicate with each other. Geopolitics concerns political power within and across geographic space. Within this broadly defined EIL context, this entry frames the political power of assessment and addresses this pow...

Test preparation for high-stakes English language tests has received increasing research a ention in the language assessment feild; however, little is known about what aspects of test preparation students attend to and value. In this study, we considered the perspectives of 12 Chinese students who were enrolled in various academic programs in a Can...

Washback, impact, and consequences refer to the educational phenomenon when testing (often large-scale and high-stakes), specifically the uses of test scores and the decisions made based on those scores, influence those stakeholders associated with such testing. Washback, impact, and consequences are used in different fields of research, and these...

This study explores teacher candidates' experiential learning through their test-taking experiences while attending a Bachelor of Education (B. Ed.) program. Eighty-four written reflections by teacher candidates taking a mid-term course examination on classroom assessment practices were analyzed. Major themes emerging from these reflections on the...

Classroom assessment tasks and environment are central to supporting student learning, yet are under-studied at the tertiary level, especially in China’s test-driven culture. This study explores the relationship between students’ perceptions of assessment tasks and classroom assessment environment, within the university context of teaching English...

The present study investigated the key determinants of Chinese students’ academic success in terms of GPA and the number of credit hours earned in Korean Universities. The determinants investigated included gender, age, prior academic performance, academic self-efficacy, the TOPIK score, self-perceived Korean and English proficiency, and the previo...

No area of language assessment research in the past 20 years has received a greater increase in attention than washback research. Beginning with the seminal work of Alderson & Wall (Alderson & Wall 1993; Wall & Alderson 1993), an evolving body of empirical washback studies has been conducted worldwide, especially in countries where English is not t...

This study investigated Chinese secondary school English language teachers’ grading decision making, focusing on the factors they considered and types of assessment they used for grading. A questionnaire was issued to 350 secondary school English language teachers in China. Descriptive analyses of the questionnaire data showed that these teachers o...

This article draws on Kane’s (2006) argument-based validation framework to synthesize evidence derived from a large-scale, mixed-method explanatory study on the impact of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) on second language (L2) students. The purpose of the OSSLT is to ensure that students have acquired the essential reading and wr...

High-stakes pre-entry language testing is the predominate tool used to measure test takers' proficiency for admission purposes in higher education in China. Given the important role of these tests, there are heated discussions about how to ensure test fairness for different groups of test takers. This study examined the fairness of the Graduate Sch...

In keeping with the trend to elicit multiple stakeholder responses to operational tests as part of test validation, this exploratory mixed methods study examines test-taker accounts of an Internet-based (i.e., computer-administered) test in the high-stakes context of proficiency testing for university admission. In 2013, as language testing researc...

The theme of LTRC 2015 From Language Testing to Language Assessment: Connecting Teaching, Learning, and Assessment highlights the symbiosis relationship of teaching, learning and testing. Symbiosis, as a biology term, refers to the interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association and typically to the advantage of bot...

This study explores the meaning Chinese secondary school English language teachers associate with the grades they assign to their students, and the value judgements they make in grading. A questionnaire was issued to 350 junior and senior school English language teachers in China. The questionnaire data were analysed both quantitatively and qualita...

Empirical research exploring test fairness in scoring written performance has been mostly conducted in the North American context. There has been little research conducted in Asian countries such as China. Considering the extreme high stakes of large-scale testing in this context, this study examines what and how raters’ scoring decisions were affe...

This study examined test-takers' motivation, test anxiety, and test performance across a range of social and educational contexts in three high-stakes language tests: the Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) Assessment in Canada, the College English Test (CET) in the People's Republic of China, and the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) i...

Testing for licensure and certification, as one of the essential components for professional licensure and certification, is utilized as a powerful decision-making tool to include or exclude internationally educated professionals from their respective professions in Canada. This report examined the role that testing plays in professional licensure...

Few studies have investigated the impact of English language programs on L2 students studying in Canadian universities. This article reports on questionnaire responses of 641 L2 students studying in 36 different English language programs in 26 Canadian universities. Programs were identified by their activity emphasis as either English as a Second L...

Within a set of relationships, large-scale high stakes testing induces consequences for its stakeholders—intended and unintended, positive and negative—between testing, teaching, and learning. At the core of this phenomenon lies the (mis)use of test scores and of the values and stakes attached to a test in society and within the pedagogical context...

Testing is an essential component of professional licensure and certification, which serves as a powerful decision-making tool to include or exclude internationally educated professionals from their respective professions in Canada. This study examines the role that testing plays in professional licensure and certification from the perspectives of...

This paper reviews a selected sample of 24 doctoral dissertations in language assessment (broadly defined), completed between 2006 and 2011 in Canadian universities. These dissertations fall into five thematic categories: 1) reliability, validity and factors affecting test performance; 2) washback (impact) and ethics; 3) raters, rating and rating s...

The day-to-day assessment of student learning is unquestionably one of the most demanding, complex, and important tasks that teachers face. Language Classroom Assessment is a comprehensive overview of different forms of language classroom assessment and practical applications that support students' learning in any context. The activities and reflec...

This study investigates the relationship between English listening comprehension and English and Chinese phonological awareness (PA), and the cross-linguistic transfer of PA in 48 Grade 2 and 47 Grade 4 Chinese English-immersion students. The results of the study indicate a correlation between English PA and English listening comprehension. English...

Research has demonstrated that second language immersion is an effective means of facilitating primary school students’ second language acquisition without undermining their competence in their first language. Despite the rapid growth of Chinese–English bilingual programmes in China, limited empirical research has been conducted thus far by which t...

This study investigated the effects of English and Chinese phonological awareness (PA) and naming speed (NS) on English reading achievement and the evidence for cross-linguistic transfer in Chinese English-immersion students. English PA was a significant predictor of English reading achievement for immersion students in Grades 2 and 4. There was li...

Testing is never a neutral process. There are always consequences. Therefore, tests are a set of differentiating rituals for students, as: “for every one who advances there will be some who stay behind” (Wall, 2000, p. 500). This is particularly true for students who are taking high-stakes tests, the results of which will have an important bearing...

A publication of the Faculty of Education and the Education Alumni Committee Spring 2012 Revisiting English as a Second Language and the Place of French in Canada within the Context of Globalization and Plurilingualism MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR Rosa Bruno-Jofré, editor T his issue is devoted to English Language Learners (ELL) and the place of French...

Test-takers' interpretations of validity as related to test constructs and test use have been widely debated in large-scale language assessment. This study contributes further evidence to this debate by examining 59 test-takers' perspectives in writing large-scale English language tests. Participants wrote about their test-taking experiences in 300...

This study examined the relationships among students’ background information and their in-school and after-school literacy activities, as well as the relationships between students’ background and their views of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT). The results showed that students’ literacy activities could be grouped into three type...

The study tracked 8 high school English Language Learners (ELLs) from 2 Ontario secondary schools located in small Ontario cities for 3 years and closely documented their linguistic, cognitive, and socio-cultural learning experiences. Each student was visited 2-4 times per year and face-to-face interviews were used on each visit. It was found that...

Despite the fast growth of English immersion in China, only limited research has been conducted regarding immersion teachers' educational background, instructional contexts, professional development, and their perceptions about English immersion. This study explored the above key issues from three primary immersion schools. Results indicated that t...

School-based assessment (SBA) has recently been introduced into the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examinations (HKCEE) in English. The present study was conducted within the context of this assessment change to investigate students’ and parents’ perceptions of the impact of SBA. Two surveys were employed to explore students’ and parents’ perce...

The importance of first language (L1) and second language (L2) test takers' experience with large-scale literacy testing has been well documented in educational research. Our study focused on the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT), a cross- curricular literacy test that is one of the graduation requirements for Ontario high school stude...

The study tracked 8 high school English Language Learners (ELLs) from 2 Ontario secondary schools located in small Ontario cities for 3 years and closely documented their linguistic, cognitive, and socio-cultural learning experiences. Each student was visited 2-4 times per year and face-to-face interviews were used on each visit. It was found that...

Research has demonstrated that second language immersion is an effective means of facilitating primary school students' second language without undermining competence in their first language. Despite the rapid growth of English immersion (EI) programmes in China, only limited empirical research has been conducted to evaluate students' academic achi...

This volume addresses a very timely and important topic, and provides both broad and in-depth coverage of a number of large-scale English tests in China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, and about the Chinese learner.

This study examined relationships between the after-school literacy activities and test performance of students who passed and students who failed the 2003 administration of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test. It included both students who have been in the Canadian school system for most of their school lives and mostly use English as a fir...

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