This Festschrift brings together 28 invited papers surveying the state of the art in language testing. The papers, by key figures in the field of language testing, cover issues ranging from test construct definition to the design and applications of language tests, including their importance as a means of exploring larger issues in language teaching, language learning and language policy.The volume locates work in language assessment in a context of social, political and ethical issues at a time when testing is increasingly expected to be publicly accountable. It is thus particularly appropriate as a tribute to Alan Davies, whose work in this field since the 1960s has been marked by its conceptual strength and social responsiveness,seeking constantly to clarify and challengecurrent practice and new trends.

A complete guide to carrying out complex survey analysis using R

As survey analysis continues to serve as a core component of sociological research, researchers are increasingly relying upon data gathered from complex surveys to carry out traditional analyses. "Complex Surveys" is a practical guide to the analysis of this kind of data using R, the freely available and downloadable statistical programming language. As creator of the specific survey package for R, the author provides the ultimate presentation of how to successfully use the software for analyzing data from complex surveys while also utilizing the most current data from health and social sciences studies to demonstrate the application of survey research methods in these fields.

The book begins with coverage of basic tools and topics within survey analysis such as simple and stratified sampling, cluster sampling, linear regression, and categorical data regression. Subsequent chapters delve into more technical aspects of complex survey analysis, including post-stratification, two-phase sampling, missing data, and causal inference. Throughout the book, an emphasis is placed on graphics, regression modeling, and two-phase designs. In addition, the author supplies a unique discussion of epidemiological two-phase designs as well as probability-weighting for causal inference. All of the book's examples and figures are generated using R, and a related Web site provides the R code that allows readers to reproduce the presented content. Each chapter concludes with exercises that vary in level of complexity, and detailed appendices outline additional mathematical and computational descriptions to assist readers with comparing results from various software systems.

"Complex Surveys" is an excellent book for courses on sampling and complex surveys at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It is also a practical reference guide for applied statisticians and practitioners in the social and health sciences who use statistics in their everyday work.