Search

Submitted to the VTR conference to be held in Rezekne, June 2015, The stable trend to lose from one-third to half of students in the first study year of computing studies motivated us to explore, which methods are used to determine in advance such applicants, who have no change to overcome the first study year. Initially, a research about the factors influencing the attrition in Faculty of Computing at the University of Latvia was conducted. The research revealed that the trend of non-beginning studies might indicate the wrong choice of the study field and possible lack of understanding of what is programming by enrolled students (applicants as well as pupils). The study provides the review of the situation with programming aptitude tests in the world, which could serve as one of the solutions to the dropout reduction. An action plan is proposed, which is based on the exploration of students and evaluation of activities already conducted at the Faculty of Computing of the University of Latvia to reduce dropout (School of Young Programmers, Compensative Course in High School Mathematics, Mentoring programs). Moreover, the supplementation of these activities by one of the existing programming attitude tests (or a combination of several tests) or a necessity to develop a new similar test is considered.

In spite of the fact that assessment criteria in general proficiency testing (GPT) is an area of extreme importance, being the expression of the underlying general proficiency construct, little has been said in the literature regarding the source of such assessment criteria. Unfortunately, even less has been done towards answering the important question of whether the application of exclusively teacher-based perceptions to GP assessment criteria is sound, given the act that context of use and test interpretation involves the general public. This paper outlines a rater cognition study that explored the GP construct by examining unguided reactions of 2 non-teacher native speakers (NSs) with 2 NS teachers. Notable quantitative and qualitative differences were found. The findings suggest that the construct of GP as rooted in the perspectives of teachers trained in the use of rating scales has questionable utility to the actual contexts where GP test scores will be interpreted, and where the abilities measured in GP tests will actually be used.

This article presents the first results of a longitudinal study involving a sample of 46 students of the SSLMIT of Trieste. The study aims at developing an aptitude test for candidates to Conference Interpreting courses at university level. The test is based on an exercise of simultaneous paraphrasing. The linguistic analysis of the performances at syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels has shown statistically significant correlations between the test results, the marks of interpreting exams and the time spent by the students to complete their training in interpreting., Cet article présente les premiers résultats d’une étude longitudinale appliquée à un échantillon de 46 étudiants de la SSLMIT de Trieste. L’objectif de l’étude est la mise au point d’un test d’aptitude pour les candidats aux cours universitaires d’interprétation de conférence. Le test consiste en un exercice de paraphrase en simultanée. L’analyse linguistique des prestations selon trois niveaux, syntaxique, sémantique et pragmatique, a permis d’établir des corrélations, significatives au point de vue statistique, entre les résultats du test, les notes aux examens et le temps employé par les étudiants pour conclure leur formation en interprétation.