BAAL TEASIG will be holding an online conference on Friday September 17th 2021 on the subject of ‘Test fairness in a digital age.’

 

The conference will be of interest to those researching or working directly in the field of language assessment, and also to those for whom language assessments may be part of a wider picture of their work such as setting parameters on university admissions, awarding visas, testing remotely and creative uses of IT.

 

BAAL TEASIG invites papers on the subject of test fairness in language assessments in a digital age. You or a colleague may be interested in submitting a paper on any of the suggested themes below. If you have a paper that is relevant to the conference theme but is not covered in the suggestions list, we would still like to hear from you.

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Possible themes

Test taker experience:

- changes to task and item design when moving to an online test

- test takers’ perception of test contents and fairness

 

Delivery modes:

- test taker digital literacy and fairness

- ensuring/maintaining fairness when digitalising traditional/paper-based tests

- ensuring/maintaining fairness when developing new or converting existing tests

 

Test bias:

- differential test functioning and test taker constituencies, e.g. does the test function differently for different language users or test takers?)

 

Security:

- online test security in digital age, e.g. issues related to remote proctoring, identity checks

 

Ethics:

- ethics in digital testing

- the fair use of digital tests, e.g. is it fair to use digital test for immigration purposes?

 

Digital accommodations:

- new functions in digital testing, e.g. spellchecks, use of translation by test takers

 

Other areas related to test fairness in a digital age

 

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Submitting a proposal

We are accepting proposals via baalteasig@gmail.com

 

​All submissions should be in a Word document format and contain the following information:

- Title: 15 words maximum

- Abstract: 250 words maximum

- Presenter information: The first author listed will be used as the main contact point for notification from the organising committee and will be responsible for notifying any co-authors.

 

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Timeline

- Abstract submission deadline: Friday August 20th 2021

- Acceptance notification: Monday August 23rd 2021