License DELNA

The DELNA Screening is effective for both students with an English-speaking background and students with English as an additional language.

The DELNA Screening is an online assessment that consists of two tasks:

1. Vocabulary (7 minutes)
   This task is designed to assess students’ knowledge of the meanings of words they are likely to come across in academic texts.
2. Timed reading (10 minutes)
   This is a 73-item task that measures the ability to decode a text under time pressure. A good implicit knowledge of sentence-level grammar and an understanding of English word collocations are an essential prerequisite for successful performance on this component.

The DELNA Screening can be run and administered entirely by a licensee, and is made up of a student-facing tasks site and a staff-facing administration site.

Student-facing tasks site
The University of Auckland advertises the DELNA Screening as a 30-minute assessment. However, the actual time varies as students can practise before each task. It is rare for anybody to take the full 30 minutes.

Large numbers of students can easily be assessed in a few hours, depending on the size of your computer labs.

• The DELNA laboratory staff log each computer onto the screening site at the beginning of the session.
• The Screening site provides all the instructions students need as they do the assessment.
• After each student completes the screening, the computers automatically return to the beginning of the assessment.
• The lab staff answer any of the students’ questions, and move new students onto the computers when the previous student has completed the assessment.

Staff-facing administration site
The DELNA Screening is easy to administer, as it is a computer-based assessment. The computer scores the results and produces result bands for each student. You can email students with their results, and advise them about what they should do next.

• You can inform high-scoring students that they will develop academic literacy independently, and advise them of any appropriate academic support available on campus.
• You can direct low-scoring students to further diagnostic assessment and language enrichment programmes.

You can export data from the screening into most database systems. Our developers can create custom export-formats to suit most needs.

Security
The DELNA Screening is administered to students under secure conditions and clients must ensure the security of the DELNA Screening by employing staff to supervise in campus labs. The University of Auckland normally employs one supervising staff member for every 25-35 students.

If you are interested in the DELNA Screening but would like an open-access version, please speak to us directly as there may be an opportunity to develop the test in this direction.

Technical information
The DELNA Screening is a hosted solution, accessed over the internet using all major web browsers including Internet Explorer 6, Mozilla Firefox 3, Apple Safari 3 and their later versions. This greatly minimises IT compatibility issues.

For data exchange of information over the network, the format is CSV file.

The DELNA Short Writing Task is part of the diagnostic assessment, and is done with pen and paper.

Students are presented with information in a table or diagram, which they must interpret, describe and elaborate using approximately 250 words.

A task of this nature, which assesses the ability to understand and interpret information, is regarded as a key component of academic literacy.

Results
This task is rated analytically on a 6-point scale for fluency, content and form. Students are given written feedback about their performance and how they can improve on this during their studies.

The University of Auckland asks low-scoring students to pick up their results in person from the DELNA Language Adviser, so they can discuss the appropriate language support on campus.

DELNA raters
The University of Auckland’s DELNA raters have university qualifications in academic writing and years of experience in language teaching and assessment. They regularly refresh their rating practice by attending annual rater training sessions, and using the DELNA Online Rater Training System. This system is available to licensees.
 

Language support issues are a growing concern in universities all around the world. DELNA has been a topic of research and debate since it was implemented in 2002. Here are some of the articles, which may help you decide if DELNA is right for your institution.

• Tracking Language Test Consequences: The student perspective
  Bright, C. and von Randow, J. (2004)
  Paper presented at the 18th IDP Conference, Sydney, October, 2004.
• Missed Opportunities: EAL students reflect on their first-year language experiences at an English-medium university
  Bright, C. and von Randow, J. (2008)
  Paper presented at the 11th Pacific Rim First-year Experience Conference, Hobart, 2008. 
• Validity and validation in language testing
  Davies, A. and Elder, C. (2005)
  In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 795-813). Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum. 
• Development and Validation of the Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment (DELNA): Final Report
  Elder, C. and Erlam, R. (2001)
  Auckland: Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics, University of Auckland.
• Report on the 2002 Pilot of DELNA at The University of Auckland
  Elder, C. and von Randow, J. (2002)
  Auckland: University of Auckland.
• The role of language proficiency in academic success: Perspectives from a New Zealand University
  Elder, C., Smith, S.D. and Bright, C. (2003)
  University of Auckland, DALSL Public Lecture.
• DELNA Report 2003
  Elder, C. and von Randow, J. (2003)
  Auckland: University of Auckland.
• The DELNA initiative at The University of Auckland
  Elder, C. (2003)
  The TESOLANZ Journal, 12, 15-16.
• Rasch techniques for detecting bias in performance assessments: an example comparing the performance of native and non-native speakers on a test of academic English
  Elder, C., McNamara, T. and Congdon, P. (2003)
  Journal of Applied Measurement 4, 2:181-197.
• Feedback to enhance rater training. Does it work?
  Elder, C., Knoch, U., Barkhuizen, G. and von Randow, J. (2005)
  Language Assessment Quarterly 2, 3, 175-196.
• Evaluating rater responses to an online training program for writing assessment
  Elder, C., Barkhuizen, G., Knoch, U. and von Randow, J. (2007)
  Language Testing 24, 1, 1-28.
• Exploring the utility of a web-based screening tool
  Elder, C. and von Randow, J. (2008)
  Language Assessment Quarterly 5.3: 173-194.
• Re-training writing raters online: How does it compare with face-to-face training?
  Knoch, U., Read, J and von Randow, J. (2007)
  Assessing Writing 12, 26-43.
• Diagnostic Writing Assessment: The Development and Validation of a Rating Scale
  Knoch, U. (2009)
  In Language Testing and Evaluation, volume 17.
  Series editors: Rüdiger Grotjahn and Günther Sigott. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
• The development and validation of a rating scale for diagnostic writing assessment
  Knoch, U. (2009)
  Language Testing 26, 2, 275-304.
• Addressing academic language needs through diagnostic assessment
  Read, J. (2008)
  Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Volume 7, 3 pp 180-190.
• How much language do they need? The dilemma English-medium universities face when enrolling English as additional language students.
  Von Randow, J. (2010)
  CELT: Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching 2010, 3, 172-176