About the Book

Language Testing and Assessment

Routledge Applied Linguistics is a series of comprehensive resource books, providing students and researchers with the support they need for advanced study in the core areas of English language and Applied Linguistics.

Each book in the series guides readers through three main sections, enabling them to explore and develop major themes within the discipline.

• Section A, Introduction, establishes the key terms and concepts and extends readers' techniques of analysis through practical application.
• Section B, Extension, brings together influential articles, sets them in context, and discusses their contribution to the field.
• Section C, Exploration, builds on knowledge gained in the first two sections, setting thoughtful tasks around further illustrative material. This enables readers to engage more actively with the subject matter and encourages them to develop their own research responses.

Throughout the book, topics are revisited, extended, interwoven and deconstructed, with the reader's understanding strengthened by tasks and follow-up questions.

Language Testing and Assessment:

• provides a innovative and thorough review of a wide variety of issues from practical details of test development to matters of controversy and ethical practice
• investigates the importance of the philosophy of pragmatics in assessment, and coins the term 'effect-driven testing'
• explores test development, data analysis, validity, and their relation to test effects
• illustrates its thematic breadth in a series of exercises and tasks, such as analysis of test results, study of test revision and change, design of arguments for test validation, and exploration of influences on test creation
• presents influential and seminal readings in testing and assessment by names such as Michael Canale and Merrill Swain, Michael Kane, Alan Davies, Lee Cronbach and Paul Meehl, and Pamela Moss.

Written by experienced teachers and researchers in the field, Language Testing and Assessment is an essential resource for students and researchers of Applied Linguistics.