The Concurrent Validity of Self-Rating with Interviewer Rating on the Australian Second Language Proficiency Ratings Scale

Abstract

This paper examines the concurrent validity of self-rating and interviewer rating of English as a second language proficiency for a stable population of rural Australian migrants. Ratings obtained for two versions of the Australian Second Language Proficiency Ratings Scale for the macroskills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing indicated that migrants tended to overestimate their proficiency with English. However, the strong correlations between their self-ratings and the interviewer ratings showed that self-rating technique is valid for the collection of large-scale research data.