A Case for Faculty Involvement in EAP Placement Testing

Abstract

The EAP placement procedure at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) involves multiple measures to assess the language skills of incoming students, some of which are facilitated and all of which are assessed by ESL faculty. In order to determine the effectiveness of this comprehensive EAP placement process and the effect of the faculty factor, a placement validity study was conducted at TRU. The results revealed that with faculty involvement, the accuracy of course placement ranged from 81% to 84; without it the accuracy of the placement would have decreased to between 44% and 66%, depending on the skill area.