Assessing the content typicality and construct of Persian language proficiency test (PLPT) for non-Persian speakers: a corpus-informed study

• Published in: Language Testing in Asia Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 11 - 26
• Main Authors: BijanKhan, Mahmood, ShayesteFar, Parvaneh, Mohebbi, Hassan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01-12-2023; Springer; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Achievement Tests; Assessment; Construct Validity; Content typicality; Content Validity; Corpus database resource; Corpus linguistics; Corpus-informed tests; Education; Factor Structure; Foreign Countries; Homographs; Homophones; Indo European Languages; Language Education; Language Proficiency; Language Tests; Native Speakers; Persian as a foreign language (PFL); Persian language; Persian language proficiency test (PLPT); Peykare; Receptive language; Second Language Learning; Second language tests; Second Languages; Signal processing; Test Construction; Test Content; Test Validity; Test validity and reliability; Testing and Evaluation; Validation studies; Validity; Vocabulary; Written Language; Asia; Europe; Test validation; Persian as a foreign language (PFL); Corpus database resource; Persian language proficiency test (PLPT); Content typicality; Peykare; Corpus-informed tests
• ISSN: 2229-0443; 2229-0443
• DOI: 10.1186/s40468-023-00217-5

Drawing on a growing body of research on the interface between corpus linguistics and second/foreign language testing and assessment, we adopted
Peykare
, a large-scale, annotated, Persian written language resource to evaluate the content (i.e., coverage and typicality) and construct validity of a Persian language proficiency test developed for certification of proficiency in Persian as a foreign language (PFL) of non-native speakers. Designed at the Research Center for Intelligent Signal Processing (RCISP), Peykare contains 35,058 text files over five linguistic varieties and 24 different registers of contemporary Persian. This study addresses how corpora, as rich database resources, can practically be applied to test validation purposes and insightfully inform the test life cycle. The results of content validity phase revealed evidence supporting content representativeness, relevance, and typicality of the test. The linkage between the corpus-extracted criterial features or parameters and those covered by the test was not, however, strongly evidenced by items measuring
ezafeh
constructions, homographs/homophones, PRO (proposition), and POST (postposition). The analysis of content typicality indicated chunks that did not closely conform to the corpus typical output. The construct validity phase, assessing the test hypothesized factor structure (i.e., hierarchical, unitary, correlated, and uncorrelated models) in two randomly split samples of PFL learners from Asian and European countries (
N
=121), showed that the correlated model fit the data best in both samples. The results supported the presence of distinctive factors of receptive skills, providing empirical evidence for score interpretations of the corpus-based test.