Evidence-Based Research in Language Program Assessment
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Evidence-Based Research in Language Program Assessment

About the Book

This volume represents the proceedings of the Pike Center symposium on Evidence-Based Research in Language Program Assessment that was embedded within SIL’s 8th  International Language Assessment Conference held 17-24 September 2004 in Penang, Malaysia.  The theme of the conference was: “How are good decisions made in language programs?” The premise of the symposium was that  they should be based on solid evidence. The papers explore methods that can be used to create such evidence, including:

  • New methods for gathering the kinds of data that are needed
  • Construction of large datasets for analysis of results across programs 
  • Methods of data analysis for producing evidence-based insights
  • Studies that report evidence-based results

About the Editors

Gary F. Simons
Gary F. Simons

Gary F. Simons is a Research Associate with SIL International (Dallas, TX) and Executive Editor of the Ethnologue (http://www.ethnologue.com/). He is also Adjunct Professor of Applied Linguistics at Dallas International University. Previously he has served in SIL as Director of Academic Computing (1986-1999), Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs (1999-2009), and Chief Research Officer (2010-2024). Early in his career he was involved in language development activities in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.  More recently he has contributed to the development of cyberinfrastructure for linguistics as co-founder of the Open Language Archives Community (http://www.language-archives.org/) and co-developer of the ISO 639-3 standard of three-letter identifiers for all known languages of the world (http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/). He holds a PhD in general linguistics (with minor emphases in computer science and classics) from Cornell University. He is an author or editor of over 100 publications (http://www.sil.org/~simonsg/).

Steve Watters
Stephen Watters

Stephen Watters is SIL's Chief Research Officer and Director of the Pike Center for Integrative Scholarship. He holds an occasional adjunct teaching position at Baylor University, and is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University. He holds an MA in linguistics from the University of Texas at Arlington and a PhD in linguistics from Rice University. He has done fieldwork throughout South Asia and the Himalaya with interest in many aspects of sociolinguistics, linguistics, and translation.

Table of Contents

    • Contributors
    • 1.Introduction
      • 1.1A Framework for Research in SIL
    • 2.Measuring Community Participation and Ownership in Language Development Programs
      • 2.1Introduction
      • 2.2A Framework for Community Participation and Ownership
      • 2.3Key Factors for Measuring Community Participation and Ownership
      • 2.4Developing CPO Assessment Tool
      • 2.5Observations from early testing of Assessment Tool (still to be tested/affirmed)
      • 2.6Discussion Benefits and Usages of the Assessment Tool
      • 2.7References
    • 3.Measuring Community Interest in Bible Translation: Taste of Translation Workshops in Indonesia
      • 3.1Introduction
      • 3.2Taste of Translation workshop design
      • 3.3Piloting Taste of Translation workshops as part of the Indonesian Bible translation movement
      • 3.4Impact of ToT workshops (down the road)
      • 3.5Weaknesses and challenges
      • 3.6Conclusion
      • 3.7References
      • 3.8Coconut Tree Metaphor (Appendix 1)
      • 3.9Language use in public domain (Appendix 2)
      • 3.10Ten steps of translation and four principles in translation process (Appendix 3)
      • 3.11Example results from five participatory tools (Appendix 4)
    • 4.Diaspora Language Study: Developing methods for large-scale language program assessment in diaspora situations
      • 4.1Introduction
      • 4.2Literature Review
      • 4.3Methodology
      • 4.4Summary of DLS 2023 Implementation
      • 4.5Conclusion
      • 4.6References
    • 5.Introducing REBaR: A Community of Practice for Reinforcing Research at Scale
      • 5.1The problem of scale meets the solution of data science
      • 5.2The basic mindset of large-scale research
      • 5.3The basic skill set of large-scale research
      • 5.4A platform for sharing resources and knowledge
      • 5.5A protocol for accessing restricted resources
      • 5.6Conclusion
      • 5.7References
    • 6.Standardized Collection of Artistic Communication Data: Local Song Genres
      • 6.1Intro
      • 6.2Literature Review
      • 6.3Vision for the Song Genre Dataset
      • 6.4Methods: what we did
      • 6.5Products of the research
      • 6.6Examples of potential findings
      • 6.7Lessons learned
      • 6.8Conclusion
      • 6.9Links
      • 6.10References
    • 7.Communicability Spectrum Analysis for Bible Translations
      • 7.1Rationale for research
      • 7.2Theoretical presuppositions
      • 7.3The Communicability Spectrum Tool (CST)
      • 7.4Conclusion
      • 7.5References
    • 8.Collaborative Data Collection: a ‘rapid’ means of data collection via offsite events with local experts and mother tongue speakers
      • 8.1Introduction
      • 8.2Global Voice Collaborative Data Gathering Workshops
      • 8.3The Vanuatu Global Voice Collaborative Data Gathering Event
      • 8.4Quality of the Data
      • 8.5Procedure for Planning Collaborative Data Collection (CDC) events
      • 8.6Advantages and Disadvantages of Collaborative Data Collection (CDC)
      • 8.7Conclusion
      • 8.8References
    • 9.The New Testament and Genesis in Omi-ti: A Case Study in Scripture Engagement
      • 9.1Introduction
      • 9.2The present study
      • 9.3Methodology
      • 9.4Findings of the study
      • 9.5Answers to research questions
      • 9.6Conclusions
      • 9.7Recommendations
      • 9.8References
      • 9.9Some prior findings on Omi reading ability among church leaders (Appendix A)
      • 9.10Exposure to Scripture among two language communities in Cameroon (Appendix B)
      • 9.11Two Bible translation programs for communities exhibiting deferred vernacular production (Appendix C)
    • 10.Observation-Based Research of Vernacular Scripture Use: the Picture in Sulawesi
      • 10.1Introduction
      • 10.2Research Question
      • 10.3Scope
      • 10.4Methodology
      • 10.5Results and Analysis
      • 10.6Evaluating the tools
      • 10.7Replicating the tool
      • 10.8Future research: Diglossia & the timing of translation
      • 10.9Conclusion
      • 10.10References:
    • 11.Using Outcome Harvesting as a Tool for Evidence-Based Decision-Making in Language Programs
      • 11.1Introduction
      • 11.2Background Theory
      • 11.3Case Studies - Outcome Harvesting in Language Programs
      • 11.4Conclusions
      • 11.5References
      • 11.6Additional material for case studies (Appendix 1)
      • 11.7Acknowledgements (Appendix 2)
    • 12.Using Outcome Harvesting with a mixed methods approach for Scripture engagement research: A case study from a mid-stream assessment of the WT Bible translation project
      • 12.1Introduction
      • 12.2Results
      • 12.3Feasibility
      • 12.4Impacts of the research
      • 12.5Summary and conclusions
      • 12.6References
    • 13.Studying Intergenerational Transmission In-depth in Families: the Case of the Sso Language Community (Cameroon)
      • 13.1Introduction
      • 13.2Language Vitality, transmission of heritage languages and the family
      • 13.3About Sso
      • 13.4Research Questions
      • 13.5Methodology
      • 13.6Results
      • 13.7Summary
      • 13.8References
    • 14.Quantitative tools for measuring language dominance: A literature review
      • 14.1Introduction
      • 14.2Language dominance
      • 14.3Instruments
      • 14.4Adapting an instrument
      • 14.5Adapting the Bilingual Language Profile for Cameroon
      • 14.6Summary and conclusions
      • 14.7References
    • 15.A Characterization of Language Ecology in Nepal: A Case Study in Using Census Data
      • 15.1Introduction
      • 15.2Background
      • 15.3Methodology
      • 15.4Results
      • 15.5Discussion
      • 15.6Conclusion
      • 15.7References
      • 15.8Appendix

About the Publisher

This book is published on Leanpub by Pike Center

Pike Center for Integrative Scholarship is an initiative of SIL International that builds capacity for language development through scholarship. SIL works alongside ethnolinguistic communities as they discover how language development addresses the challenging areas of their daily lives—social, cultural, political, economic and spiritual.

One of Pike Center’s strategies for building capacity is to grow the needed bodies of knowledge through its Agile Publishing program. We are using this lean publishing platform to give our affiliated scholars a platform for developing and refining new contributions to growing bodies of knowledge that support the language development movement. Many of our titles are still in a preliminary stage of development. Others are finished but have such a narrow audience that we have not elected to turn them into print books. Still others have reached the maturity of becoming a print book; in such cases, this is indicated by a link on the landing page for the book.

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