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Project Details:

Principal Investigators on this project:

Defense Language Testing Advisory Board
Ensuring Excellence in Foreign Language Testing

Project Objective: To establish an independent board of testing experts to provide recommendations to the United States Government concerning all practices involved in the construction and administration of language testing in the DoD.
Project Definition: Language testing in the DoD includes the Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT) Program, aptitude and performance testing.
Project Importance: The DLPT is the decisive criterion for determining a foreign language learner's level of proficiency and is used as the basis for eligibility for Foreign Language Proficiency Pay. DELTAB members provide an independent assurance to the DoD leadership, as well as to the professionals taking the test, that it is a valid and reliable indicator of language skills and capacities.
Project Background: DELTAB is composed of the nation's leading psychometricians and language testing experts, who are charged with providing advice and counsel on the validity and reliability of DoD language tests, as well as on the effectiveness and efficiency with which the tests are administered and protected.
Project Products:
  • Independent of the government and free from any management of the organizations tasked with developing and delivering the Defense Language Testing Program, the DELTAB is able to provide advice that reflects an objective view of the kinds of language test that will best serve the country. The Board will publish:
  • Regular Conference Reports on deliberations of the DELTAB quarterly meetings.
  • Biennial summary reports on the Board's principal findings and recommendations.

Project Reports:
  • DELTAB Charter
  • Overview Report on Issues Discussed at the February 23-24, 2006 Meeting
  • Data and Information Requests from the Defense Language Testing Advisory Board

Project Activities:

    Distinguished members of the board include:

  • John Clark, DELTAB Chair, Language Testing Expert; Government Expert
  • Carol Chapelle, Professor of TESL/Applied Linguistics, Iowa State University
  • Andrew Cohen, Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of Minnesota
  • Dan Davidson, President of American Councils for International Education; Professor of Russian and Second Language Acquisition, Bryn Mawr College
  • Stephen Dunbar, Professor of Educational Measurement and Statistics, University of Iowa
  • Howard Everson, Executive Director of NAEP Statistical Services Institute; American Institute for Research
  • Dorry Kenyon, Director of Language Testing Division, Center for Applied Linguistics
  • Robert Mislevy, Professor of Measurements and Statistics, University of Maryland, College Park
  • Stephen Sireci, Professor of Research and Evaluation Methods Program, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
  • Charles Stansfield, President of Second Language Testing, Inc.
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We work across disciplines

CASL divides itself into five areas of specialty; all areas are collaborative and multi-disciplinary:
  • Technology Use
  • Second Language Acquisition
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Stress and Performance
  • Less Commonly Taught Languages

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