Abstracts - Earli

The evaluation of an educational system toward its monitoring and pilotingClaude Houssemand, University of Luxembourg, LuxembourgPhilippe Wanlin, University of Luxembourg, LuxembourgThis paper presents the methodologies and results of an evaluation of adult apprenticeship("Apprentissage pour adultes"), a second chance qualification in Luxembourg. Several researchquestions can be put forward. For example, why is there a continuously increasing number ofpeople who want to join this apprenticeship while only 40% of applicants obtain an apprenticeposition? The evaluation of the measure involved a cyclic succession of four key-steps: - Datacollection: Three sources where consulted: quantitative data from the Luxembourg UnemploymentAgency; qualitative data obtained through interviews with managers administering the measure,adult apprentices, teachers and employers; and quantitative data obtained through surveys of 100%of applicants to the measure. - Comparison: We generated indicators from the quantitative,qualitative and survey data to respond to the research questions. - Determining corrective actions:After investigation we suggested possible corrective actions and ways to implement them. -Implementation of solutions: The suggested actions have not yet been implemented; this would bethe next step of the work. The study has shown that the main aims and objectives of the measurehave been reached but many questions remain unanswered due to an unclear definition of themeasure’s aims and the multiple (partially contradictory) objectives of the measure. The currentevaluation has led to the planning of a piloting system of the measure. Results show that theassessment of the measure has to be widened to include curriculum assessment, process-productanalysis, employers’ surveys, and systematic evaluation by developing a computation of automaticindicators.The influence of item properties on the difficulty of EFL reading items in GermanyAstrid Jurecka, German Institue for International Educational Rese, GermanyDuring the last years, foreign language skills have become more and more important in manydifferent contexts all over Europe. The EBAFLS (European Bank of Anchor Items for ForeignLanguage Skills) – Project belongs to the Lingua2-Programme of the European commission. Itsaim is to build a bank of anchor items for the assessment of three foreign languages (English,French and German) and two language skills (reading and listening), which are comparable acrossdifferent countries and thus lead to culturally fair and comparable test results. This presentation isfocusing on the German sample of the EBAFLS ‘Reading English’ study. One unexpected resultof the study was that most of the English reading items which showed differential item functionsin Germany, which means that those items are either significantly easier or more difficult for theGerman students compared to students from other countries, were items which had actually beenconstructed in Germany. Furthermore it turned out that approximately half of the items whichshowed DIF were in fact more difficult for the German students. Different analytic steps have beenconducted to explain these differential item functions. One step was to find out if certain itemproperties might be responsible for making an item more or less difficult by using these itemproperties as predictors for the item difficulty within a Linear Logistic Test Model. Results ofthese analyses, possible implications on cross-cultural language testing as well asrecommendations for further research are going to be presented and discussed.– 231 –