Future of diagnostic language assessment

Abstract

Diagnostic language assessment (DLA) has emerged as a major topic of interest among language testers, as evidenced by recent publications of journal articles and special journal issues on this topic (Alderson, Brunfaut, & Harding, 2014; Lee & Sawaki, 2009). Two fundamental goals of DLA are to identify language learners’ weaknesses and deficiencies, as well as their strengths, in the targeted language domains and provide useful diagnostic feedback and guidance for remedial learning and instruction. In other words, DLA seeks to promote further learning designed to address the test-takers’ weaknesses and increase their overall growth potential. Thus, it is important to create meaningful linkages between outcomes of diagnosis and subsequent learning and instruction when designing the DLA system. At the moment, DLA, as a subfield of language assessment, is at an important juncture on its course of development and evolution. In order to advance the field beyond where it stands, breakthroughs can be made on multiple fronts, which include, but are not limited to, refining frameworks and methodology for diagnosis, feedback, and guidance for remedial instruction. One of the urgent issues is to come up with workable frameworks of DLA (whether they are theoretical or practical) that can guide the whole process of designing, developing, implementing, and validating DLA. These require us not only to review previous work and ongoing developments in DLA but also to look into, and gain insights from, various related fields of inquiry, such as the following: (a) fields where diagnosis is frequently practiced; (b) dynamic language assessment; (c) cognitive diagnostic assessment models; (d) technological innovations in assessment and scoring; and (e) feedback research in second language acquisition and writing. The primary goal of this special issue is to bring together expertise and insights from various fields related to DLA, with a view to providing a focused forum through which current thinking and ideas about DLA are actively shared among researchers and practitioners and thereby facilitating development of a shared understanding among language