Writings of Lyle F. Bachman

James Enos Purpura is Professor Emeritus of linguistics and education in the Applied Linguistics and TESOL Program and Director of the Scenario-Based Language Assessment Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA. His scholarly interests include: the assessment of grammar, meaning, and pragmatics; cognition and language assessment; and both learning-oriented and scenario-based assessment. He was editor of Language Assessment Quarterly and past president of the International Language Testing Association.Antony John Kunnan is a language assessment specialist with Carnegie Mellon University, USA, as a Senior Research Fellow. His research interests are fairness of tests and testing practice, assessment literacy, research methods and statistics, ethics and standards, and language assessment policy. He was founding editor of Language Assessment Quarterly, past president of the International Language Testing Association, and the founding president of the Asian Association for Language Assessment. He was awarded the Cambridge/ILTA Distinguished Achievement Award in language assessment in 2024.

• Support Material: Further Readings from Lyle F. BachmanSeries Editors' PrefaceThe L. F. Bachman Collection Projectby James Enos PurpuraAcknowledgmentsPermissionsIntroductionIntroducing L. F. Bachman’s Milieuby James Enos Purpura & Antony John KunnanSection 1: About L. F. BachmanArticle 1.1Language Assessment: Its Development and Future—An interview with Lyle F. Bachmanby Jing Chen (2011)Article 1.2A biographical sketch of Lyle Bachmanby Antony John Kunnan (2013)Section 2: Validation: Theory and PracticeArticle 2.1The construct validation of some components of communicative proficiency (with Adrian S. Palmer) (1982)Article 2.2A comparison of the abilities measured by the Cambridge and Educational Testing Service EFL test batteries (with Fred Davidson and John Foulkes) (1990)Article 2.3Constructing an assessment use argument and supporting claims about test taker-assessment interactions in evidence-centered assessment design (2003)Article 2.4Building and supporting a case for test use (2005)Article 2.5How is educational measurement supposed to deal with test use? (2013)Article 2.6A new approach to classroom-based language assessment (with Barbara E. Damböck) (2022)Article 2.7 (Online)Bachman, L. F. (1982). The trait structure of cloze test scores. TESOL Quarterly, 16, 61-70.Article 2.8 (Online)Anderson, N., Bachman, L. F., Perkins, K., & Cohen, A. (1991). An exploratory study into the construct validity of a reading comprehension test Triangulation of data sources. Language Testing, 8, 41-66.Article 2.9 (Online)Bachman, L. F. (2016, unpublished). Assessment justification: An alternative to validation for evaluating and assuring assessment qualitySection 3: Defining What Language Tests Measure: L2 Proficiency and PerformanceArticle 3.1An examination of some language tests from a communicative viewpoint (1985)Article 3.2Some reflections on task-based language performance assessment (2002)Article 3.3Alternative interpretations of alternative assessments: Some validity issues in educational performance assessments (2002)Article 3.4What is the construct? The dialectic of abilities and contexts in defining constructs in language assessment (2007)Article 3.5 (Online)Bachman, L. F., & Sauvignon, S. J. (1986). The evaluation of communicative language proficiency: A critique of the ACTFL oral interview. The Modern Language Journal, 70, 380-390.Article 3.6 (Online)Bachman, L. F. (1988). Problems in examining the validity of the ACTFL oral proficiency interview. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 10, 149-164.Article 3.7 (Online)Bachman, L. F. (1990). Constructing measures and measuring constructs. In B. Harley, P. Allen, J. Cummins, & M. Swain (Eds.), The Development of Second Language Proficiency (pp. 26-38). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Section 4: Test Task CharacteristicsArticle 4.1Performance on cloze tests with fixed-ratio and rational deletions (1985)Article 4.2The use of test method characteristics in the content analysis and design of EFL proficiency tests (with Fred Davidson and Michael Milanovic) (1996)Article 4.3 (Online)Bachman, L., F., Lynch, B., & Mason, M. (1995). Investigating variability in tasks and rater judgments in a performance test of foreign language speaking. Language Testing, 12, 238-257.Article 4.4 (Online)Bachman, L. F., & Palmer, A. S. (1981). The construct validation of the FSI oral interview. Language Learning, 31, 67-86.Article 4.5 (Online)Bachman, L. F. (1981). An experiment in a picture-stimuli procedure for testing oral production. In A. S. Palmer et al. (Eds.), The construct validation of tests of communicative competence (pp. 140-148). Washington, D. C. TESOL.Article 4.6 (Online)Bachman, L. F., Kunnan, A. Vanniarajan, S., & Lynch, B. (1988). Task and ability analysis as a basis of examining the content and construct comparability of two EFL proficiency test batteries. Language Testing, 5, 128-159.Section 5: Language Testing–Second Language AcquisitionArticle 5.1Language Testing-SLA research interfaces (1988)Article 5.2 (Online)Bachman, L. F. (1988). Language Testing-SLA interfaces: An update. In L. F. Bachman & A. Cohen (Eds.), Interfaces between SLA and Language Testing Research (pp. 1-31). New York: Cambridge University Press.Section 6: Epistemological Issues in Applied Linguistics ResearchArticle 6.1Generalizability: A journey into the nature of empirical research in applied linguistics (2006)Article 6.2 (Online)Bachman, L. F. (2009). Generalizability and Research Use Arguments. In Erickan, K. & Roth, W-M. (Eds.) Generalizing from Educational Research: Beyond qualitative and quantitative polarization. (pp. 127-148) New York: Routledge.Section 7: State of the Art and ReflectionsArticle 7.1What does language testing have to offer? (1991)Article 7.2Modern language testing at the turn of the century: Assuring that what we count counts (2000)Article 7.3Ongoing challenges [in Language Assessment] (2014)Article 7.4 (Online)Bachman, L. F., & Purpura, J. E. (2008). Language Assessments: Gate-Keepers or Door Openers? In B. M. Spolsky, & F. M. Hult, (Eds.), The Handbook of Educational Linguistics (pp. 456-468) Boston: Wiley-Blackwell.List of Bachman’s PublicationsAuthor and Subject Index