Abstracts
Abstract
As post-secondary institutions assume more responsibility for the language abilities of their graduates, more attention is being paid to post-admission language support to enhance student success. Previous research has indicated that a post-admission language diagnostic assessment procedure, when coupled with language support services, can be an effective model in helping students meet language expectations in post-secondary settings. This paper outlines the development and validation of a screening-diagnostic assessment procedure to recommend students to language support services in diploma programs. Our key findings suggest that testing vocabulary can be an effective measure for screening language abilities and that students who receive a recommendation through the procedure and subsequently attend language support classes have higher communication grades than those who do not attend. These results offer validity evidence for the use of this procedure while ongoing research is being conducted to continue to validate its testing measures.
Keywords:
- diagnostic assessment,
- language support,
- vocabulary,
- writing,
- Validity
Résumé
Les établissements postsecondaires se chargent de plus en plus des compétences langagières de leurs étudiants. Le soutien linguistique visant à améliorer la réussite des étudiants s’est ainsi vu accordé une importance croissante. D’ailleurs, les recherches antérieures indiquent en effet qu’une évaluation diagnostique suivie de soutien linguistique, peut être un modèle efficace pour aider les étudiants à répondre aux attentes linguistiques de leurs établissements. Notre étude porte sur le développement et la validation d’une évaluation diagnostique suivie de recommandations aux services de soutien linguistique. Nos principales conclusions suggèrent que l’évaluation du vocabulaire peut être une mesure efficace pour le dépistage des compétences linguistiques. Par ailleurs, les étudiants qui reçoivent une recommandation aux services de soutien au terme de cette évaluation et qui assistent par la suite à des cours de soutien linguistique ont une meilleure performance dans leurs cours de communication, dépassant leurs paires qui n’y assistent pas. Ces résultats, quand bien même préliminaire, nous donnent une preuve de validité de notre évaluation diagnostique.
Mots-clés :
- évaluation diagnostique,
- soutien linguistique,
- vocabulaire,
- écriture,
- validité
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