Lauren
Kennedy is a test developer and project manager at SLTI. Since joining
SLTI in August 2006, Ms. Kennedy has led a team of item writers who have
developed reading passages and items for several tests of English skills
to be used within professional and educational contexts. She also
supervised the creation and implementation of a rater training program,
and is currently involved in a study to evaluate its effectiveness.Ms. Kennedy headed up a project developing a style guide for item writers for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and serves as a language consultant during NAEP item reviews. As part of SLTI’s contract with the NAEP Education Statistics Services Institute, Ms. Kennedy wrote several research papers on the topics of Universal Design, linguistic simplification, design considerations of implementing large-scale computer-based assessments, and general item-writing guidelines. Lauren Kennedy is trained in the U.S. Government’s ILR Skill Level Descriptions, attended a three-day workshop on ILR Text Typology and Passage Rating, and received a two-day orientation to the development and review of the DLPT V at the Defense Language Institute (DLI).
Ms. Kennedy recently completed an evaluation of the Foreign Service Institute’s reading proficiency testing program and co-authored a report on partially correct distractors for the DLI. She was also involved in reverse engineering and writing test specifications and items for the Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB). Ms. Kennedy represented SLTI at the June 2008 ILR OPI Summit hosted by the DLI and ACTFL.
Prior to her work at SLTI, Ms. Kennedy worked on several test development projects including the Canadian Public Service Commission’s Second Language Evaluation Test for Written Expression, the Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) Assessment, and the Oral Proficiency Examination for Cooperative Education Students. She also collected focus-group data for a study investigating ESL students’ Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) test-taking processes.
Ms. Kennedy earned her MA in Linguistics and Applied Language Studies and a Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She has taught English as a second language in academic and government settings. Additionally, she minored in Japanese in college and lived in Japan for one year as an exchange student.
Lauren Kennedy’s CV