DOI: 10.3886/e115904
title: Data and codebook for Language Learning article: Background characteristics and oral proficiency development over time in lower-division college foreign language programs

description: In the years 2014 through 2019, Michigan State University received Language Proficiency Flagship Initiative grant as part of the larger Language Flagship, which is a National Security Education Program (NSEP) and Defense Language and National Security Education Office (DLNSEO) initiative to improve language learning in the United States, to document language proficiency in its foreign language programs. During the first three years of the five-year grants (Fall 2014 through Spring 2017), language proficiency data was collected during academic years 2014-2015, 2015-2016, and 2016-2017, from language learners in Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish language programs to document the students’ proficiency achievements. The students were additionally administered a background questionnaire at each time of testing. <br><br>Students were offered to take up to three proficiency tests each semester: speaking, listening, and reading. The university contracted with Language Testing International, ACTFL’s official testing subsidiary, to purchase and administer to students the Oral Proficiency Interview - computer (OPIc) for speaking, the Listening Proficiency Test (LPT) for listening, and the Reading Proficiency Test (RPT) for reading. <br><br>The data deposited here are the data used by Xiaowan Zhang and Paula Winke in their Language Learning paper "Background characteristics and oral proficiency development over time in lower-division college foreign language programs." The data are a subset of the OPIc and survey data that comes from the Language Proficiency Flagship Initiative at Michigan State University (Co-PIs Paula Winke and Susan Gass). For the Language Learning paper, a pseudo-random sample of intact, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish L2 classes above the first year, first semester (called “Level 101” at this university) had their proficiency measured five times over the course of three academic years (fall 2014, spring 2015, fall 2015, spring 2016, spring 2017). At each time of data collection, the sample of classes were brought to computer labs by their instructors. In the labs, the students took a language background questionnaire and the OPIc. For the Language Learning paper, we culled data from the test sessions of 1,922 lower-division students studying Chinese (N = 209), French (N = 483), Russian (N = 120), and Spanish (N = 1,100). At the time of testing, the students were in the second, third, or fourth semester of their respective foreign language programs. More specifically, the classes for this study were “Level 102” (first year, second semester; N = 798), “Level 201” (second year, first semester; N = 646), and “Level 202” (second year, second semester; N = 993). Over the three-year project window, a total of 1,457 second-, third-, and fourth-semester students were tested once, 415 were tested twice, and 50 three times.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Please see the Codebook for the variable and scale information.
description: <b>Methodology: </b>Please see the Language Learning paper by Zhang and Winke for the methodology. Please note that "NA" in the data file means "missing data." <b><br><br>Grant numbers:</b> Michigan State University (PIs Winke and Gass) received this Language Proficiency Flagship Initiative grant for the collection of these data from the Language Flagship, within the National Security Education Program (NSEP) and the Defense Language and National Security Education Office (DLNSEO). The grant was administered through the Institute of International Education (IIE) in Washington, DC. <br><br>8/1/2014 - 7/31/2016: 2340-MSU-7-PI-093-PO1<br>8/1/2016 - 12/31/2019: 0054-MSU-22-PI-280-PO2