By MARTY LEVINE
Pitt’s English Language Institute (once slated for closure but, with a reprieve, undergoing a shift in its duties) has been conducting a pilot study to refine how undergraduate and graduate international students are tested and slotted into English support classes — by determining which testing helps their classroom performance.
Amanda Godley, vice provost for graduate studies, told the April meeting of the University Senate’s Educational Policies Committee that ELI’s English proficiency test pilot began last fall.
Such testing is required of all international students at admissions. Up to now, these same students had neem retested by ELI, with these second tests used to determine which support classes are recommended for them to take, from “Writing” and “Speaking and Listening” to “Technical Communications for Info Sciences” and “Technical Writing.”
Many of Pitt’s peer institutions don’t retest students themselves, relying instead on their admissions test results using Duolingo, ETS’s TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).
In the pilot study, 1,500 ELI test papers were analyzed, showing that they were not a good predictor of students’ grades in English support classes in the first year.
Since there was “not a lot of strong evidence for retesting” by Pitt, the pilot study shifted to using only tests from admissions as keys to placement in support classes.
“We didn’t see a negative effect from not retesting,” Godley reported.
Still, the results from the first year of the pilot program are considered “preliminary,” she said, and the pilot will continue for another year. “We might alter the way we recommend English support classes to students,” she added.
ELI director Dawn McCormick told the committee that her office has already shifted to using specific skill sections of Duolingo, TOEFL and the IELTS to make recommendations for specific English support classes.
In fact, recommendations are all that ELI can make, since English support classes are not required for a degree program, Godley said — although different Pitt units may more strongly encourage such courses for their enrollees, she allowed.
Godley also reported a “steep decline” in the number of international undergraduates enrolling in English proficiency courses, with not as much decline among international graduate students. But this has not resulted in the lowering of such students’ grade point averages, she said.
Godley noted that language testing and support for international teaching assistants and teaching fellows is required by Pennsylvania law for all instructors for whom English is not their first language. ELI still conducts testing for placement in teaching assistant (TA) and teaching fellow (TF) workshops designed by Pitt, in a process that is not part of the pilot study.
This summer, ELI is putting together a working group to study international TA and TF assessments and their goals, the roles of schools and ELI in such testing, and their format and timing, as well as the retesting process, McCormick said.
Testing Center overbooking
In other news, Adam Lee, vice provost for undergraduate studies, said the Testing Center is looking to eliminate clusters of overbooking, since the center has limited seating.
Pitt’s Testing Center is still experiencing an increased demand for services — part of a national trend, he said — which is most pressing at midterms. In particular, there are disproportionate requests for larger in-person testing among classes meeting between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
If such simultaneous demand could be eliminated, Lee said, the Testing Center would currently have enough resources to accommodate all tests.
The best but least practical method for eliminating such demand would be to re-work class scheduling to spread out the days and times when Pitt’s largest classes are offered. Instead, the Testing Center is looking to eliminate a requirement by faculty for all their students to take tests at the center simultaneously.
“My assumption is that you want all your students taking the exam at the same time” for academic integrity, he told faculty members on the committee. He hopes instead faculty will devise optional tests for taking at different times, akin to the manner in which make-up tests are designed, with variant questions.
Lee said that such flexible scheduling will be an advantage for students as well. He hopes the center can implement this in the fall, after seeking faculty review over the summer.
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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