Multilingual Assessment: Insights from Psycholinguistics and Educational Research

In recent years, the need to assess multilinguals’ language proficiency and cognitive skills has rapidly grown as a result of worldwide migration. Several studies focusing on the assessment of linguistic and cognitive abilities, though, point to the paradox of evaluating multilinguals by means of monolingual tests. Assessment policies and practices based on monolingual constructs perpetuate the misleading vision of multilingual individuals as the sum of multiple monolinguals. By so doing, such policies and practices fail to do justice to the complex and multifaceted nature of the individuals’ language experience. Furthermore, they fail to reflect the individuals’ acquisition and learning process, which involves a dynamic interaction between two (or more) languages.

The goal of this Research Topic is to bring together studies focusing on the development of experiments and assessment tools, with a view to investigating multilingual communication as it unfolds in natural circumstances, and to providing ecologically valid ways to assess multilingual competence; the latter understood as a multilingual’s ability to dynamically shift between languages, codeswitch, and simultaneously use different languages for different linguistic functions. In this respect, psycholinguistic research on multilingualism has recently made some progress, as a result of its diminished reliance on monolingual norms as controls. Nevertheless, most studies continue to test multilingual individuals in a monolingual mode, using one language at a time.

Current research on linguistic assessment considers the possibility of testing in a multilingual mode: tests are designed in multiple languages (e.g., by means of translations) or, alternatively, multilinguals are allowed to answer using their full repertoire (e.g., through code-mixing or by using multiple languages). This Research Topic invites contributions discussing methodologies to assess multilingual individuals in a multilingual mode. Contributions may address the following research questions from either a psycholinguistic or educational-linguistic perspective:

• Do multilingual individuals perform better in multilingual, rather than monolingual, tests?
• Do the benefits of multilingual testing occur independently of the multilingual profile of the test taker (e.g., independently of the test taker’s having been exposed to multilingual education), or of the type of linguistic or cognitive test?
• How do multilinguals use all their language resources during multilingual testing?
• What are the main challenges of multilingual testing in schools or in the lab?

This Research Topic has important implications for multilingual language assessment: Firstly, it will address the shortcomings of ‘subtractive’ views of language assessment, whereby multilinguals are tested in one language at a time. Secondly, it will show the advantages of considering and including multilinguals’ whole language repertoire during assessment. Lastly, it will introduce new practices in multilingual language assessment, which have the potential to inform the design of dynamic and summative assessment instruments in language education and speech-language pathology.

We encourage the submission of original manuscripts addressing the abovementioned issues, with a clear presentation of the research questions, approach, and methodology.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Registered Report
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: bilingualism, multilingualism, multilingual assessment, translanguaging, educational linguistics, applied linguistics, language acquisition, psycholinguistics

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.