Technical b r Report - International Military Testing Association

the time, the development of these tests involved only a niinimum of
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research. During and following tlw Korean War it became apparent that
the tests, vcrc not ;~Iw;~ys rcl inhlc in discriminnt ing hetwwn individuals
of varying levels of 13nf;uagc ability. As a result of this recognized defi-
cicncy, Ar111y USC c agencies rc*qucr;tcd the devcloplwnt of new Arm:’ Langunge
l’roiicic:,jry Tcs1.s. Accordingly, in 1.955 ci’hc Adjutant Gcncrnl’s Office was
(the predecessor of The Dcfcnse language Institute) was subsequently directed
td preparc ln:,~:uagc tests, hutlr to rcplacc esisting i.~~strinnrnts and t o dcvclcrp
new tests: ‘in langu.il;es for xhich tller(. wcrc no tests at tllnt tinrc. EVCIl
though t!;e new prototype tests in Russian and Chincsc -Xxnd,7rin were carcfltlly
clc~~lopec! a n d validated, the ot.hcr new tests, npproxir2ately 35 in number,
consisted mainly of translations of lhc tx0 prototype tests and wet-c not
subjected to systematic validation procedures before their ictroduction into
tlbc Dcfrnse Language Progrnx in 1958. As a rcsul L, Russian proficiency test
was used as the model ior all European languages and the Chincsc-?bndarin
test was used for all XsiaLic 1an~;u:ly.c:~. It became apparent following
extensive USC during the sullscquent ycnrs that these 38 additional tests wcrc
not as valid or as reliable as had been assumed. Additionally, the USC of a
skglc test form for each of thcs’c tests over mxc than a decade further
reduced their cffcctivcnc: :. .i::r to possible test compromise.
/
,
Recognizing these
defi.cicncies, The Defense L3njiuage Institute initiated a series of new projects
in 1366 aimed at developing follow-on DLPT IIs, or second generation DLpTs to
replace the old ones. The fi.rst group of DLPT LIs, wcrc developed under
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