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Student Placement: A Multifaceted Methodological Toolkit

Hille, Kathryn Streeter
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5611-7951
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1573216693530411

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Educational Research and Evaluation (Education).
Placement testing in intensive English programs (IEPs) involves methodological considerations that merit additional research. Neither quantitative nor qualitative methods alone have always proven successful to address common research problems in the field of IEP student placement, including questions regarding the selection of placement tests and the establishment of cut scores for those tests by means of standard-setting methods. These two key questions, alongside the methodology underlying them, comprise three necessary supporting elements for the achievement of appropriate student placement. This dissertation uses a three-article format to examine, in turn, each of these necessary supporting elements and its connections to the other two. The first manuscript, “The Application of Mixed Methods for Developing Student Placement Protocols in Intensive English Programs” serves as the methodological focus for this dissertation, exploring the potential of Mixed Methods Research to address the common challenges of inconsistent placement criteria and small sample sizes in IEP student placement and to yield recommendations regarding the selection of placement tests and the setting of cut scores. The second manuscript, “Placement Testing: One Test, Two Tests, Three Tests? How Many Tests are Sufficient?,” then provides a quantitative analysis to address the question of placement test selection so as to maximize placement accuracy and includes consideration of logistical issues as well. The final manuscript, “Setting Cut Scores for Student Success,” addresses the issue of establishing appropriate cut scores and presents an approach to synthesizing the potentially divergent cut score results that different standard-setting methods can yield. Taken together, these three manuscripts provide a close examination of multiple supporting elements that are necessary for the achievement of appropriate student placement; these manuscripts also challenge practitioners in the field of IEP student placement to use multiple well-founded methods when making decisions about student placement protocols. This research also serves as a foundation for the necessary, rigorous study of the use of the many newer commercially available English proficiency tests for the purpose of IEP student placement.
Krisanna Machtmes, PhD (Advisor)
Yuchun Zhou, PhD (Committee Member)
Lijing Yang, PhD (Committee Member)
Sara Helfrich, PhD (Committee Member)
177 p.
Education; Education Policy; Educational Evaluation; Educational Tests and Measurements; English As A Second Language; Higher Education; Higher Education Administration; Language; Statistics
ESL; intensive English program; placement testing; student placement; mixed methods research; Michigan EPT; TOEFL ITP; regression; standard setting; cut scores; student success; bookmark method; borderline group method; cluster analysis

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Hille, K. S. (2019). Student Placement: A Multifaceted Methodological Toolkit [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1573216693530411

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Hille, Kathryn. Student Placement: A Multifaceted Methodological Toolkit. 2019. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1573216693530411.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Hille, Kathryn. "Student Placement: A Multifaceted Methodological Toolkit." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1573216693530411

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou1573216693530411
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This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.
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