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Article published In:
ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 170:1 (2019) ► pp.53–78

The VocabLab tests

The development of an English and French vocabulary test

| KU Leuven
| KU Leuven
| KU Leuven

This study describes the development of an English and French multiple choice vocabulary test – the VocabLab tests – that measure learners’ knowledge at four frequency levels up to the most frequent 5,000 words: the 2,000-level, 3,000-level, 4,000-level, and the 5,000-level. The two tests aimed to address some of the limitations of tests currently in use. First, they are sampled from recent frequency lists. Second, they are geared towards Dutch-speaking learners of English and French in Flanders. Third, they attempt to minimize guessing by including an “I don’t know”-option. The findings showed that the tests are internally consistent. Mean scores decreased when the words were less frequent, lending evidence to the tests’ construct validity. Additionally, the tests seem to be able to discriminate between different proficiency levels. As both tests were developed according to the same principles, they can be used to compare learners’ English and French vocabulary knowledge.

Keywords: vocabulary test, English, French, frequency, vocabulary knowledge, vocabulary levels
Article outline
  • Background
    • Frequency-based vocabulary tests
      • English tests
      • French tests
    • Criticism of these tests
      • Guessing and overestimation
      • Cognates
      • Sampling, sampling rate and test sections
  • Rationale and aim
  • Research questions
  • The study
    • Item selection
      • Recent lemma-based frequency lists
      • Sampling rate
      • Selection of items
    • Test format
    • The Pilot tests
    • The final English test
      • Participants
      • Results
    • I don’t know-option:
    • The final French test
      • Participants
      • Results
    • I don’t know-option:
  • Discussion
    • Do the English and French test have a scalable profile?
    • Do the English and French test discriminate between different proficiency levels?
    • Use of the VocabLab tests
    • Limitations and future research
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 5 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.17029.pet
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