SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- Foreign Language Assessment Tool
- Notice Date
- 7/22/2010
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 541930
— Translation and Interpretation Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of the Air Force, Direct Reporting Units, USAF Academy - 10 CONS, 8110 Industrial Drive, Suite 200, USAF Academy, Colorado, 80840-2315, United States
- ZIP Code
- 80840-2315
- Solicitation Number
- FA7000-10-R-0037
- Archive Date
- 8/20/2010
- Point of Contact
- Daniel D. Moline, Phone: 719-333-8266, James A. Dougherty, Phone: 719-333-6677
- E-Mail Address
-
Daniel.Moline@usafa.af.mil, James.Dougherty@usafa.af.mil
(Daniel.Moline@usafa.af.mil, James.Dougherty@usafa.af.mil)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Under the contemplated action, the United States Air Force Academy ( USAFA) will contract with Brigham Young University (BYU) to establish an essential development capability to assess the language proficiency of cadets/midshipmen going through service academy and ROTC foreign language programs. The primary goal of this project is to develop a Foreign Language Assessment prototype to evaluate the Chinese and Spanish listening, reading and speaking proficiency of cadets and midshipmen at the end of their academic foreign language experience. The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is: 10 USC 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-3(a)(2)(ii). FAR 6.302-3 is entitled, "Industrial Mobilization; Engineering, Developmental, or Research Capability; or Expert Services". The Defense Language Office (DLO) is the sponsor for this assessment project, which involves all three service academies, USAFA, USMA and USNA. Currently, the Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT) is the only assessment tool available in the Department of Defense, and it is more suitable for measuring advanced-level language skills in listening and reading. It is not well suited to assess the language proficiency gained through service academy or ROTC programs, as the cadets/midshipmen generally do not reach the higher proficiency levels measured by the current DLPT (levels 2 and higher in the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale). Furthermore, as an official, certifying exam, it provides no feedback to close the learning loop and does not identify specific areas in need of improvement for the student, the teacher and course developers. This has reinforced the need for a foreign language assessment instrument in Chinese and Spanish for the reading, listening and speaking modalities in order to measure students' ability between the Novice-Low to at least Intermediate-High levels (0 to at least 1+ in the ILR scale) using the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines. In order to address the deficiencies of current assessment tools, instruments must be designed to 1 ) allow for efficient delivery to a large number of geographically separated students in a short amount of time (not longer than 50 minutes for the speaking portion, and not longer than 50 minutes for the listening and reading portions); 2) allow timely, efficient scoring to facilitate analysis and feedback; 3) ensure reliability and validity using accepted psychometric procedures; 4) be able to be modified, expanded or updated at a later date to test for higher levels of proficiency; and 5) be able to be used as a template for the rapid development of similar instruments in other languages. In addition, the developed product must meet the following minimum capabilities: 1. The assessment prototype tool shall segment areas for analysis that will identify areas in need of improvement by the student, teacher or course developers. The team of consultants for Chinese and Spanish item development and field testing should include faculty members from USAFA, USMA, and USNA so that the test can reflect the needs and requirements of the academic programs at the three academies and in ROTC; 2. The assessment prototype tool shall report results both on the ACTFL and ILR scales. The Contractor shall provide the methodology for determining scores, by segment and overall, and the equivalency formula used to translate ACTFL scores to ILR scores and vice versa; 3. The contractor will ensure that the prototype test can be administered in two 50-minute segments. Cadets/midshipmen from USAFA, USMA, and USNA must be included in the population for pilot-testing and field-testing to establish reliability among these groups. 4. The assessment prototype tool shall meet Department of Defense security standards and be compatible with information technology systems used in the Language Departments of all three academies. An assessment tool to measure cadets'/midshipmen's listening, reading and speaking proficiency levels at the end of their foreign language experience is a desperately needed capability. This prototype tool will enable all three service academies to strengthen and improve their language programs, which will result in officers with stronger language skills. The development of a computer-adaptive foreign language proficiency exams based on ACTFL standards and tied to the ILR scale for university-level students requires expertise in the teaching and learning of foreign languages, a deep understanding of ACTFL standards and guidelines, knowledge of the ILR scale, as well as experience in the development of computer-based, computer-adaptive technology. For this reason, the US Air Force Academy will contract with BYU, an institution already positioned to meet the requirements of this project. BYU is an educational institution already recognized as a center of excellence for foreign language teaching and assessment. It has produced several computer-based tests in a number of languages, such as the WEB Computer Adaptive Placement Exam (CAPE), that are widely used in universities around the country. As a member of the National Security Education Program (NSEP) Chinese Flagship Program, BYU is uniquely positioned at the forefront of computer-adaptive assessment for Chinese. The Chinese Flagship Program at BYU was established in 2002 by a grant from the National Security Education Program (NSEP) to develop high-level proficiency in the Chinese Language. The success of BYU students with linguistic and cultural skills is receiving special recognition throughout the government, the community, BYU, and their Chinese partners. The Flagship program has been able to achieve many successes including their reading assessment tool CAPE. The items for the current version of test were calibrated by several hundred students at universities throughout the U.S. The current tests developed by BYU, similar in nature to this requirement and validated through the years, can segment areas for analysis and identify areas needing improvement for teacher and students. These tests are correlated to the ACTFL scales, as well as to other Chinese proficiency tests, such as the HSK--the Chinese Government's official test Chinese as a second language. BYU has already developed some prototypes that can further be modified to meet our requirements within the time allocated for this contract. In addition, BYU works with the Center of Applied Linguistics (CAL), a non-profit institution, and ACTFL. CAL has a long-standing capability of developing oral proficiency tests and already has developed Arabic and Spanish speaking tests that can undergo further development to meet our the requirements of this acquisition. BYU and ACTFL have worked together to create the first standardized English Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing proficiency tests for NATO and they are currently working together on the development of Reading and Listening proficiency tests for the National Middle East Language Resource Center in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew. The expertise BYU and its partners have gained developing the Computer Adaptive Chinese tests and the WEB CAPE products, as well as their access to recognized foreign language experts, will enable the service academies to immediately address the challenges facing departments of foreign languages. A solicitation will be used in awarding the contract. The effort will have one-year period of performance with an estimated start date of 17 Sep 2010. Any vendor interested in discussing or responding to the effort described in this posting should contact the Contracting Officer. All responsible sources may submit a bid, proposal, or quotation which shall be considered by the agency. The solicitation will not be made available through the Government-wide Point of Entry. Interested parties may contact the Contracting Officer for information on how to obtain the solicitation.
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