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The Research and Development team works closely with international experts in the research of the technology and development of the Versant tests. The team conducts internal research as a part of ongoing validity studies and gathers substantial evidence for the validity, reliability, and practicality of its current products and at investigating new applications for Ordinate technology. It leverages the expertise of independent international experts to conduct validation studies. The team also responds to requests from independent researchers who conduct experiments in the field of linguistics and use Versant products as one of their measures. Research results are published in international journals. Listed below is some of the research conducted by the Research and Development team at Pearson.

Featured Research Papers and Presentations

Balogh, J., Bernstein, J. & Suzuki, M. (2006, July). Automatically scored spoken language tests for air traffic controllers and pilots. Paper presented at International Aviation Training Symposium 2006, Oklahoma City.^*

Balogh, J. (2005, May). A common testing framework for computerized spoken language tests in multiple languages. Paper presented at the ALTE 2nd international conference, Berlin, Germany.^*

Balogh, J., Bernstein, J., Barbier, I., & Rosenfeld, E. (2004, October). Relating automatic spoken Spanish score to the ILR scale. Paper presented at ECOLT 2004, Washington D.C. ^*

Bernstein, J. (2004, April). The theory and practice of speaking assessment. Paper presented at the 38th TESOL annual convention, Long Beach, California.^*

Bernstein, J., & Rosenfeld, E. (2005, June). Workable models of standard performance in English and Spanish. Paper presented at EALTA conference 2005, Voss, Norway. ^*

Bernstein, J., Rosenfeld, E., Townshend, B., & Barbier, I. (2004, June). An automatically scored spoken Spanish test & its relation to OPIs. Paper presented at IAEA 2004, Pennsylvania.^*

Downey, R., Van Moere, A., Suzuki, M., & Rubin, D. (2008, June). Developing of an automated oral reading fluency assessment. Paper presented at Language Testing Research Colloquium, Hanzhou, China.

Ordinate Corporation. (2007). Test comparisons: A comparison of three internationally recognized tests of spoken English. Unpublished manuscript.

Ordinate Corporation. (2008). Internationally recognized English language exams: How they map to the Common European Framework (CEFR) Levels. Unpublished manuscript.

Pearson, Inc. (2008). Consistency of Versant English Test scores over multiple administrators. Unpublished manuscript.

Suzuki, M., Balogh, J., & Bernstein, J. (2006, June). Psycholinguistics in computerized language testing. Paper presented at AAAL in Montreal, Canada. ^*

Van Moere, A. & Engelter, M. (2008, February). Versant™ Aviation English Test: A job-specific test of language that complies with ICAO requirements. Paper presented at the 9th Annual ATP Conference, San Antonio, Texas.

^*Formerly part of Harcourt Assessment, Ordinate has been combined with Pearson. PhonePass SET-10 is now the Versant English Test. The Spoken Spanish Test (SST) is now the Versant Spanish Test.