The B.E.S.T.E.L. (Better Edition of Structure Tests --English Language)

Each of the BESTEL forms places students into seven levels of proficiency from low beginning to advanced plus. Each 45 minute test has 75 items with three choices. Pearson Product Moment Correlations for the forms range from .82-.92. (See below). KR 21 reliabilities are:

BESTEL 1: .91	BESTEL 2: .91	BESTEL 3: .93	BESTEL 4: .91
Number: 341	333	306	280

Each form has 25 items from beginning level tests, 25 from intermediate level tests and 25 from advanced level tests. The items were developed as follows: 1. Sample items were written to represent content and objectives taught at each of six levels - two beginning, two intermediate, and two advanced. From these tests, oral performance and from achievement tests, an item bank was developed for each level. 2. Teachers then reviewed 200-300 items per level and removed ambiguous and poor items. 100 -150 items representative of different grammar and structural objectives per level were selected and made into two tests of 50-75 items each for six levels. 3. The 50 -75 item tests for each level were administered to the appropriate levels. Through item analysis, 60 items from the 100-150 items per level were then selected for each level and developed into two equivalent 30 item forms. Item difficulty ranged from .50 -.80 percent and item reliability was greater than .45. 4. These 6 level tests contained a total of 360 items, but were awkward to administer as placement tests. Therefore, 300 items representative of objectives taught at six levels, were selected and made into six forms of 50 items each. After field tests, they were published as : STEL -Beginning form 1 and form 2, STEL- Intermediate form 1 and form 2, and STEL -Advanced form 1 and form 2. 5. To further simplify placement procedures, these same 300 items have been placed into four equivalent forms of 75 items each. Studies are being conducted to compare BESTEL with other English Second/Foreign Language tests and relate these to a common scale for scaled scores. At present the conversion tables on the answer keys convert raw scores to percentages and to levels ranging from low beginning to advanced plus. A technical manual for BESTEL is forthcoming giving more detailed information and field test results. Following are STEL form correlations and correlations with CELSA (a multiple-choice cloze reading test).

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