DET Research & Development: October '24

It was an honor to host the 25th annual Midwestern Association of Language Testers (MwALT) conference at Duolingo headquarters in Pittsburgh, PA! Nearly a hundred researchers from around the country gathered to share their work around our conference theme, Bridging competing priorities in language assessment: Connecting validity, reliability, and practicality!

The MwALT conference kicked off another full month for our research team. On October 11, Ramsey Cardwell heads to the CALA/ACÉL Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to deliver his keynote, Advancing Language Assessment With Human-in-the-Loop AI. On October 24, Andrew Runge and Geoff LaFlair will attend the TSLL conference at Iowa State University , to present their paper, Register-driven prompt design and evaluation of GPT generated stimuli for assessment. 

Looking ahead to next year, we are seeking proposals for the workshop Jill Burstein and James Sharpnack are organizing for the Innovation and Responsibility in AI-Supported Education (iRAISE) conference, being hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) in March 2025 in Philadelphia. Visit the conference website to learn more, and submit your proposal!

We’re also very proud to share some exciting new publications. Duolingo English Test Chief of Assessment Alina von Davier 's long-awaited volume, Generalized Kernel Equating with Applications in R is now available from Taylor & Francis! This work, co-authored by Marie Wiberg and Jorge González Burgos , guides readers through the mathematical underpinnings and practical implementations of the kernel equating method of test equating and test concordance, pioneered by von Davier, Holland, and Thayer, in the 2004 volume The Kernel Method of Test Equating. And several members of our research team contributed chapters to The Concise Companion to Language Assessment, edited by Dr. Antony John Kunnan, which is now available from Wiley. 

As we continue to drive the testing industry forward with our own contributions to the field, we’re proud to support the next generation of language testing researchers! Our Competitive Research Grants support topics of interest related to the DET’s ongoing research agenda; each study will receive up to USD $120,000 based on scope. Meanwhile, we encourage doctoral candidates specializing in language assessment to apply to our annual Doctoral Dissertation Awards—you could win up to $6,000 to fund your research. See below for more information. We look forward to reviewing your submissions! 

Lastly, if you're interested in working with us, we are currently seeking two Language Assessment Scientists to join our ever-growing research team—could it be you?!

MwALT 2024 

The 25th annual Midwestern Association of Language Testers conference saw researchers from across the midwest and beyond share work united by this year’s theme, “Bridging competing priorities in language assessment: Connecting validity, reliability, and practicality.” 

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Competitive Research Grants

Proposals for our competitive grants are due Sunday, January 12, 2025. Three winners will be awarded up to $120K based on the scope of the project! 

Learn more

Doctoral Dissertation Awards

Applications for our annual Doctoral Dissertation Awards are due Friday, October 18, 2024! Doctoral candidates specializing in language assessment can win up to $6K to fund their research

Apply now

Join the DET R&D team!

We are currently seeking Language Assessment Scientists to join our team! Click the link below to learn more about our open positions.

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You can find more DET publications on our research page, and learn more about the impact we're having on the assessment industry on Test Center, the official DET blog!