Testing vocabulary is similar to testing in other areas of language knowledge and use. The same criteria of reliability, validity, practicality, and washback need to be considered when designing and evaluating vocabulary tests. In some ways testing vocabulary is easier than testing grammatical knowledge or control of discourse because the units to test are more obviously separate. It is not too difficult to identify what a word type is. However, there are problems and issues and we look at these in this chapter. This chapter has two major divisions. The first major division looks at the purposes of vocabulary tests, covering diagnostic, placement, achievement, and proficiency tests. The second major division looks at different test formats, answering questions like: Should choices be given? Should words be tested in context? How can I measure words that learners don’t know well? This section covers a wide range of vocabulary test formats, along with comments on their design and use.

Assessing intercultural communicative competence can be challenging for a number of reasons. First, there is little consensus regarding the precise definitions of subcomponents of intercultural competence, making it difficult to identify specific constructs to assess. Second, intercultural competence is locally situated, so the “same behavior or skill may be perceived as competent in one context but not another or one perceiver but not another, and thus no particular skill or ability is likely to ever be universally ‘competent’” (Spitzberg & Changnon, 2009, p. 6). Third, in a related vein, some aspects of intercultural communicative competence might not be suitable for classroom assessment, an issue that is addressed at the end of this chapter. In spite of these challenges, for personal and institutional purposes, assessing learners’ progress in intercultural communicative competence remains an important educational objective. Thus, in this chapter, I review several relevant concepts in L2/Lx assessment, then explore how they relate to understanding intercultural communicative competence, illustrating the theory with three case studies.

This chapter examines screening for depressive disorders and suicidality in clinical and in research contexts using self-report measures. The chapter provides an overview of various definitions of the respective depression and suicidality constructs and addresses assessment issues that have particular relevance to their measurement, including willingness to disclose symptoms; generalizability across cultures; practicality; and psychometric properties. These widely used instruments were reviewed: The Beck Depression Inventory – II (BDI-II), the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-Revised (CESD-R), the Patient Health Questionnaire – 9 (PHQ – 9), the Profile of Mood States 2 (POMS 2), the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS), the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire – Revised (SBQ-R), and the Adult Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire (ASQ). Summaries of the comparative features of these depression and suicidality scales are provided in tables.