Humanos en el Corazón
Los Evaluadores Certificados de Avant son educadores de idiomas, expertos y, con mayor frecuencia, miembros de las comunidades de idiomas para las que están calificando.
Avant sigue mejorando y desarrollando la mejor tecnología de evaluación de competencia lingüística en el mundo y, sin embargo, nada puede reemplazar a las personas con un conocimiento íntimo y profundo de cada idioma que evaluamos. Son la base para garantizar los datos más precisos y confiables para ayudar en el desarrollo del currículo, el aprendizaje profesional de los maestros y los resultados de los examinados.
¡Muchos de nuestros evaluadores son expertos en idiomas que ayudaron a desarrollar las propias evaluaciones!
Respaldado por Investigación
Investigación reciente sobre la calificación de las secciones de Escritura y Habla de las evaluaciones Avant STAMP demuestra cómo Avant aplica estándares rigurosos y controles de calidad en la calificación para alcanzar un alto grado de precisión y fiabilidad en todas las 45 evaluaciones de idiomas.
Los resultados muestran que en todos los niveles, la calificación de las respuestas de escritura y habla de Avant STAMP 4S y STAMP WS es altamente consistente. El Consejo Americano de Educación (ACE) ha realizado una revisión extensa de los procesos de calificación de Avant, su precisión y fiabilidad. Basándose en su revisión, ACE recomienda Avant STAMP para créditos universitarios. Para más detalles estadísticos, lea el documento completo sobre el alto grado de fiabilidad inter-evaluador de las respuestas de habla y escritura de Avant STAMP.
Avant Rating Philosophy
We believe that language learning is a lifelong journey. Proficiency, defined as a high degree of competency or skill, evolves over time, practice, and the ability to use a language in real-world contexts.
Comprehension and Communication
Avant Certified Raters are trained on rating for consistency, comprehension, and the ability to communicate in the target language. Test takers are not penalized for errors, such as in grammar, and are not asked to recite memorized vocabulary or conjugations. Rather, responses are rated based on their spontaneous demonstration of what they know at this point in time.
See our Benchmarks and Rubric Guide for further details on the Avant Rating process.
Training Standards
Avant hires, trains, and certifies all of its raters to ensure rigorous standards are met when it comes to the accuracy and reliability of our assessment scores.
The Avant Rating Team has created a powerful and efficient training process that helps us ensure that we have well-trained, qualified individuals. We have developed a team of rater managers working in different time zones to ensure that the raters have immediate access to help when presented with difficult responses.
We also utilize a system of mentor raters and assistants to the rater managers who will help in guiding newly trained raters and ensure their rating is in line with rating criteria and standards.
Learning
We start by orienting new raters to the Avant STAMP criteria, which are derived from ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. Avant gives raters specific criteria to make the abstract guidelines more concrete.
For example, the guidelines for Intermediate-High state that test takers must produce “connected sentences into paragraphs using a limited number of cohesive devices.” This can mean many things to many people, so we introduce concepts that are easier to interpret consistently: a response should contain complexities.
This distinguishes between sentences such as “My friend and I went to the store. We bought ice cream. We ate it on the way home.” which is not complex and does not meet the “connected sentences” criterion. “My friend and I ate the ice cream that we bought at the store” is a response and meets part of the “connected sentences” criterion.
Practicing
Once raters understand the criteria, they begin applying that knowledge to practice responses. Each time they rate a response, they get immediate feedback on whether they scored it correctly and an explanation of the correct rating.
Repeating this process through hundreds of responses, raters internalize the criteria. Excellence becomes a habit.
Certifying
When they are ready, new raters take a certification test. To be certified, our raters must pass the certification test with near-100% accuracy.
Monitoring
Even after they are certified, Avant raters keep demonstrating that they are consistent and reliable. Rater Connection, a proprietary rater management system, inserts one anchor item — agreed upon by master raters — into every batch of 25 real responses.
This shows how different raters score that anchor item and ensures that they remain true to the standard over time. In addition, one out of five items is randomly chosen for double rating. If the first two raters disagree, the item goes to a third rater with master raters carefully reviewing all of the tie-breaking decisions.
Avant ADVANCE: Train Like a Rater
Avant ADVANCE was developed from this rating training and certifying process. Teachers use it to deepen their own knowledge of the Proficiency Guidelines so they can better inform their day-to-day language teaching.
Students benefit from teachers who have taken Avant ADVANCE. But don’t take our word for it. Read how this educator’s classroom was transformed by language proficiency training.
Video Testimonials
Hear from our raters why working as an Avant rater is a rewarding experience.
Become a Rater
If you would like to join the Avant rating team, complete our online application.