Texas Campuses Plug into Computer-Adaptive ESL Test

“The results are very exciting. ACT’s test is really the first to show promise for placement,” said Barbara Dogger, lead faculty for writing and grammar in the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program at Richland College in Dallas.

Richland College is part of the Dallas County Community College District, a founding member of the League for Innovation in Community Colleges, and a leader among progressive community colleges. Each of Richland’s four sister schools also has adopted ACT’s ESL test, but only after extensive pilot testing with their own programs.

“None of them wanted to adopt based on another campus’ pilot test. They all felt that their student body was unique enough that they wanted to do their own,” said ACT Consultant Barbara Endel, who conducted the pilots. “To date, the data generated by pilots has shown the test is working as expected, so that most ESL departments have recommended taking steps toward adoption.”

For Dogger, Endel’s Dallas County District pilot-test data and personal support made her decision easy.

“The clarity of the data and her communication with us, and the fact that the test itself holds up as far as placement goes, were really good selling points,” she said. “We’re enthusiastic about the use of the computer-adaptive program. We feel we’ve really entered the twenty-first century.”

Released in December 1999, ACT’s ESL test was created in response to requests from educators like Dogger who needed to more precisely assess the skills of non-native English speakers. It accurately differentiates skills at all levels, from near beginner to near native language, through a series of computer-adaptive questions. As a student answers questions, the untimed test automatically adjusts the difficulty of the next item. Scores are generated immediately so that students can talk to their advisor and register for the right ESL course.

ACT’s test is one of only two computer-based options available to ESL programs. Other ESL assessment tools are paper-and-pencil exams, most created years ago.

“ESL programs serve a very dynamic student body, but their testing assessment options have been very static for a long time,” Endel said.

Finding up-to-date ESL assessments are just one challenge ESL educators face today. They need tools to help them grapple with the twin challenges posed by rapidly changing demographics and increased legislative emphasis on educating the workforce of the future.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the number of jobs requiring at least a bachelor’s degree to grow 21.6 percent between 2000 and 2010, those requiring an associate degree to increase by 32 percent, and those requiring a postsecondary vocational award to expand 24.1 percent. At the same time, the number of working-age Caucasians is expected to drop and the number of working-age minorities—many of whom are not native English speakers—will rise.

The challenge facing all educators—and especially ESL educators—is to attract, retain, and graduate a larger number of minority students. Such groups traditionally have lower graduation rates than Caucasians, even when enrollment rates are the same. A September 2002 report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group, illustrates the challenge. It showed that equal numbers of U.S.-born children of Hispanic immigrants and Caucasians enroll in college, but less than half of the Hispanic students are likely to earn bachelor’s degrees.

“They’re going to college, but they’re not finishing college,” the report’s author, Richard Fry, told the Associated Press.

Such findings come as no surprise to Texas.

The state has the second-largest population of ESL students in the country. Legislators there are working with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to increase enrollment, retention, and graduation rates of minorities—especially Hispanics and Blacks—in two-year and four-year degree programs. Legislative initiatives, embodied in Closing the Gaps: The Texas Higher Education Plan, include a renewed commitment to identifying, attracting, enrolling, and retaining students who “reflect the population of Texas.” Similar themes echo through initiatives in other states and at the federal level.

For ESL instructors, however, the numbers become personal. ACT’s ESL test helps them address the issues one student at a time, as Michael Coulehan of El Paso Community College explained.

“I talked my boss into going with this test as a way to possibly modernize our current system of placement testing. Previously, we used another placement test, and we had a couple of problems. Many of our Asian students did exceedingly well in the grammar and were placed in levels too difficult for them. Many of our Hispanic students, who had been exposed to English along the border, were placed too low. Many students were either frustrated or bored because of misplacement. This was affecting our retention,” said Coulehan.

El Paso Community College started using the ACT ESL test this school year to place students in its non-credit intensive English Language Program.

“It’s too early to determine the test’s effect on retention, but most feedback has been positive,” Coulehan said. “Instructors have indicated that students in their classes are all at the same level. They are now better able to target instruction at a single level rather than at multiple levels. Students are more comfortable working together without being intimidated by more advanced students in their class. Administrators are happy with the ease of the placement test and the quick results, which aid in registration.”

In the future, Coulehan plans to use the ESL test to measure student progress as well. He hopes that a midpoint evaluation of skills will motivate students. He also wants to provide midterm data to administrators and faculty members who can use it to tweak the curriculum.

Other Texas institutions also use ACT’s ESL for more than placement.

Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, Texas, uses it to assess the listening skills of international teaching assistants in an academic setting. Dr. Greta Gorsuch wanted a tool like the ACT ESL test when she took over as the director of the International Teaching Assistants Training Program three years ago. She especially likes the interpretive information the test offers.

“As the director of this program, I am very happy to have this score and descriptive information to go along with it,” Gorsuch said. “It has given me the type of information I need.” It is too early to determine how well the ESL test scores predict a teaching assistant’s success, but a preliminary survey of the students who have taken the test in Gorsuch’s program revealed they generally felt confident taking it, thought the directions were clear, and agreed that the test accurately measured their ability to listen to English.

“It is a well-designed program,” said Chinese doctoral student Lu Tian, who teaches physics as a teaching assistant at Texas Tech. “The instruction is clear. It’s a very easy-to-follow test. The speakers use slow and clear speech, which is close to normal lectures in school.”

Administrators at Austin Community College use the ACT ESL test for placement, but they also used it to streamline their screening process and increase the number of students eligible for enrollment at the school. Previously, a separate assessment staff created a pool of 30 or so possible students by holding two or three large-group ESL assessments each semester. ACT’s ESL test allows the ESL staff to conduct its own small-group assessments weekly, which accommodates more students and significantly increases the pool of eligible students, according to Mary Corredor, program coordinator for ESL.

Austin Community College is still in the pilot testing phase, but program instructors are sold. They already have recommended that the campus adopt the test.

“We hope to be using it permanently by the fall of 2003,” said Corredor. “We just think it is a good test and overall it will help us better place our students.”

For more information on ACT’s COMPASS/ESL test, contact the ACT Educational Services Division at 319/337-1054.