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Academic literacy: Five new tests [Introduction]

This is a workbook of practice tests of academic and quantitative literacy (AQL) for prospective university students. The workbook comes with answers at the end. This book replaces Academic literacy: Test your competence (2014).

Related papers

Journal for Language Teaching, 2017

This accepted manuscript of a paper discusses the need for and the refinement of an academic literacy test for Grade 10 students as a first step towards measuring and then developing the required level of academic literacy before entry into higher education.

Journal for Language Teaching, 2013

In a previous study (Patterson & Weideman, 2013), we discussed the importance of acknowledging the typicality of academic discourse as a starting point for critically engaging with constructs of academic literacy. In this article, various attempts at identifying the typical features of academic discourse are surveyed and critiqued. The preliminary conclusion is that the uniqueness of academic discourse lies in the analytical or logical language that characterises it (see Patterson & Weideman, 2013 for an extended explanation). Using this characteristic feature as a criterion allows us to sift through the various opinions on what constitutes both academic discourse and academic literacy in a way that is potentially productive. It suggests on a number of points ways in which one might add components to the current definition of academic literacy that forms the test construct of academic literacy tests such as TALL, TAG, and TALPS. The article concludes by suggesting some modifications and additions to the design of current test task types in tests of academic literacy. These tentative suggestions may allow theoretically defensible modifications to be made to the construct of a number of tests of academic literacy. TALL, TAG, the relevant part of the NBTs, and TALPS are generally high stakes tests that are widely used in South Africa. Since no critical examination of their construct, which is now more than a decade old, has so far been undertaken, we hope that these proposals do not only come at an appropriate moment, but may also be useful to those responsible for developing further versions of these tests.

Per Linguam, 2005

Abstract: To ensure fairness, test designers and developers strive to make their instruments for assessing the language abilities of learners as accurate and reliable as possible, and have traditionally used a number of techniques to ensure this. From a post-modern, and especially critical ...

Journal for Language Teaching, 2011

Though there are many conditions for drafting language tests responsibly, this contribution focuses first on how to operationalise a set of three critically important design principles for such tests. For the last thirty years or so, developers of language tests have agreed that the most important design principle emanates from our ability to give a theoretical justification for what it is that we are measuring. Without this, we eventually have very little ground for a responsible interpretation of test results, which is a second, though not secondary, principle for language test design. There is a third principle involved, which is that the measuring instrument must be consistent and stable. The paper investigates how a blueprint for an academic literacy test may be conceptualised, how that could be operationalised, and demonstrates how pilot tests are analysed with a view to refining them. Finally, that leads to a consideration of how to arrive at a final draft test, and how valid and appropriate interpretations of its results may be made. Since the three conditions for language tests focussed on here are not the only design principles for such applied linguistic instruments, the discussion is placed in a broader philosophical framework for designing language tests that also includes a consideration of some of the remaining design principles for language testing.

Language Matters, 2006

The Test of Academic Literacy Levels (TALL) used by three South African universities (Pretoria, Stellenbosch and North-West) provides a reliable and affordable alternative means of assessing the academic literacy of new entrants into the higher education sector. A close alignment is sought between the test, the task-based language instruction that follows its administration, and the learning and acquisition aimed for. The article critically examines the construct of the test as well as its task types in light of various current discussions about authenticity. The article is concluded by suggesting a number of possible alternative task types that may achieve a closer alignment with the goals embodied in the construct. Various developmental, contextual, administrative and logistical constraints appear, however, to affect the level of resemblance to academic discourse of the test task types.

Language Matters, 2015

The National Benchmark Test in Academic Literacy (NBT AL) is designed to assess the ability of first-year students to cope with the typical language-of-instruction, academic reading and reasoning demands they will face on entry to higher education. Accordingly, the theoretically grounded and psychometrically-validated construct on which the test is based assesses entry level students’ capacity to, for example: (1) distinguish between superordinate and subordinate ideas; (2) differentiate between the decontextualised and contextualised meanings of academic vocabulary and discourse; (3) reason inferentially, deductively and inductively; and (4) understand and interpret text structure and argument. Drawing on quantitative data, this paper reports on the overall performance levels of a large-scale (n = 6500) national sample of test takers who took the test as applicants for the 2013 intake into higher education. Overall test-taker performance is disaggregated by performance on sub-scales of the overall construct of academic literacy. The argument is made that the NBT in Academic Literacy provides a framework for a nuanced and practicable understanding of test-takers’ academic literacy ‘proficiencies’. The conclusion to the paper evaluates the extent to which the test enables higher education lecturers’ greater engagement with students’ academic literacy shortcomings and with research-led information aimed at the improvement of teaching and learning.

In Higher Education both nationally and internationally, the need to assess incoming students’ readiness to cope with the typical reading and writing demands they will face in the language-of-instruction of their desired place of study is (almost) common cause. This readiness to cope with reading and writing demands in a generic sense is at the heart of what is meant by notions of academic literacy. ‘Academic literacy’ suggests, at least, that entry-level students possess some basic understanding of – or capacity to acquire an understanding of – what it means to read for meaning and argument; to pay attention to the structure and organisation of text; to be active and critical readers; and to formulate written responses to academic tasks that are characterised by logical organisation, coherence and precision of expression. This paper attempts to address two crucial questions in the assessment of students’ academic literacy: (1) Does such an assessment matter, i.e. does understanding students’ academic literacy levels have consequence for teaching and learning, and for the academic performance of students, in Higher Education? (2) Do generic levels of academic literacy in the sense described above relate to academic performance in discipline-specific contexts? Attempts to address these two questions draw on comparative data based on an assessment of students’ academic literacy and subsequent academic performance across two disciplines at the University of Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Quantitative analyses illustrate relationships between students’ academic literacy levels and the impacts these have on academic performance. Conclusions to the paper attempt a critical assessment of what the analyses tell us about students’ levels of academic literacy; what these levels of literacy might mean for students and their teachers; and what the strengths and limitations of assessing academic literacy using a generic test might be.

Journal for Language Teaching, 2004

Tests of language ability are based on a certain construct that defines this ability, and this blueprint determines what it is that will be measured. The University of Pretoria has, since 2000, annually administered a test of academic language proficiency to more than 6000 first-time students. The intention of this test is to identify those who are at risk academically as a result of too low a level of academic language proficiency. If their academic literacy levels are too low, students are required to enrol for a set of four courses in order to minimise their risk of failure. The Unit for Language Skills Development at the University of Pretoria has now embarked on a project to design an alternative test to the one used initially, specifically with a view to basing it on a new construct. The reason is that the construct of the current test has become contested over the last decade as a result of its dependence on an outdated concept of language, which equates language ability with knowledge of sound, vocabulary, form, and meaning. Present-day concepts emphasise a much richer view of language competence, and their focus has, moreover, shifted from discrete language skills to the attainment of academic literacy. In this paper the abilities encompassed by this view will be discussed in order to compare the construct of the current test with the proposed construct. Keywords: language testing; academic literacy; test constructs; accountability

Journal for Language Teaching, 2021

The massification of higher education has led to a substantial increase in enrolments since 1993, and an astonishing 300% rise in firstdegree completion among black students. Yet questions remain about the level and adequacy of students’ preparation at school for such study. Drop-out rates of learners remain unacceptably high both at school and university level. Language ability is often identified as being one of several hurdles that prevent success, especially in higher education. At school there is an apparent misalignment between the aims of the current Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), and the subsequent instruction and assessment of students. CAPS requires that students should be prepared to handle academic discourse, yet no clear outline of what academic discourse entails is given.Consequently, many higher education institutions across the country require of students to write additional pre-admission or post-entry tests of language ability. In some cases the...

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Academic Literacy 1

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• Academic Literacy - Notes on Unit 1 Question 1 / 7 What is skimming in the context of language literacy? Practice quiz
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