EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE COMPUTER ADAPTIVE LANGUAGE TESTING METHODOLOGY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE REQUIREMENTS OF NATO STANAG 6001

Abstract

The article deals with the experimental verification of the effectiveness of the Сomputer Adaptive Language Testing (CALT) methodology in accordance with NATO standard STANAG 6001. The relevance of the study is stipulated by the need to optimize the language testing process to ensure an objective determination of the level of foreign language proficiency of the military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in receptive skills (reading and listening) in accordance with the requirements of NATO STANAG 6001 and to quickly process the results of language testing. The CALT methodology, which provides for the adaptation of the level of difficulty of test tasks depending on the answers of the test takers, was tested on students of the National Defence University of Ukraine in 2023–2024. The results of the experiment showed a high level of validity, reliability, and objectivity of the results obtained using the CALT methodology, which was confirmed by the methods of mathematical statistics. In order to confirm the research hypothesis, a correlation analysis was conducted to determine whether there were high direct correlations between the two methods – CALT and paper-based testing. The data analysis showed a strong positive correlation between the results of paper-based reading and the results of CALT. The study revealed a number of advantages of the CALT methodology, namely: reducing the average testing time, speeding up the process of evaluating the test result, controlling the accuracy of measurement of all test participants, creating a unique test due to the algorithm for selecting test tasks, ensuring the adaptability of the algorithm, which provides flexibility and adaptation of the language test to the individual level of training of each test participant. Thus, the CALT methodology is an effective tool for assessing the level of language competence of military personnel.