Technical b r Report - International Military Testing Association

contract with the Educational Testing Service, utilizing language exptrts
from the DLI and from various universities, in addition to resources from
ETS . Scvcn high-cnrollmrnt languages wcrc included, such as Russian,
Spanish, Arabic, etc. These initial DLPT 11s are introduced into the Defcnsc
Language Program at the present time. As these tests are introduced into LIIC
system and prove to bc operationally sound, other language proficiency tests
and al ternatc forms wil 1 then tic introduced into the system. Corrznt plans
call for the dcvclopmcnt of two or three alternate forms as a minimum for
each high density DLI’T II. DLI’s MD plan includes the construction and
valic!;llion of a computer bank of tesL items for each language, from which
multiple test forms can be asscmblcd automatically and actually produced
in final form, .)oth test bonklcts‘and audio tapes, by co,?lputrr. These wcrc
the facts and some of the events which led to our current efforts with r?g;trd
to second gcncrnt ion DLPTs. Additional details concerning specific aspcc!!;
of the dcvcloyncntnl work program are given ‘belcw. i
?hcsc early prototype tests were developed by Army Language School pcrsonncl,
in cooperation wilh rcprcscntativcs from the Personnel Research Branch of The
Adju.tant General’s Office. Each test has two parts: Listening Comprehension,
consisting of sixty items and Reading Comprehension also consisting of sixty
items. All items nrc mulliplc-choice type, each consisting of a lead sentence
or a short paragraph in the foreign lansuagc and four optional responses
printed in English in the test booklet. Three of t&se options are plausible
distracters yhcrc;ts, only one is the correct answer. The options can be words,
phr.?ses, scntcncc Lrnns la t ions, or paragraph gistings depending on the objcc-
tivc of the itml. Listening comprrhcnsion item lpads are voiced on a tape,
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