Improving a Placement Test Battery: What Can Test Analysis Programs Tell Us?

Abstract

This paper reports the analyses of a newly introduced placement test battery in the Japanese Program at the University of Melbourne. Focus is placed on the reliability of two innovative tests employed, SPOT (Simple Performance Oriented Test) and SKAT (Simple Kanji Awareness Test). SPOT and SKAT aim at obtaining maximum information on test- takers’ receptive proficiency in spoken and written forms of the language with minimum time and human resources. The test results for eighty-two students were analysed using two test analysis programs, Generalisability theory based program, GENOVA, and Rasch measurement model based program, QUEST. The analyses showed that both tests were highly reliable, and that they could be further improved through revisions.