Validating Pic-Lex for pre-primary and primary school age children
Chloe Mills & James Milton
Vocabulary assessments are widely used by researchers, teachers, and clinicians, and it is vital that any assessment used in practice is informed by research. This study trials Pic-Lex (Alexiou, 2019), a new picture-based receptive vocabulary test for children speaking English to establish whether the results it produces appear reliable and valid. The participants were 40 schoolchildren aged from 3 years and 2 months to 7 years and 9 months. Validation was assessed using an argument-based framework. Pic-Lex was trialled alongside the British Picture Vocabulary Test (BPVS) and a high correlation was found between Pic-Lex and raw BPVS scores (r = 0.79, p = <.01). The receptive vocabulary sizes of this sample averaged around 4000–5000 words, which is similar to other figures from the literature. The development of this new research-based receptive vocabulary test can have positive implications for vocabulary interventions in several contexts.
Key words: vocabulary, receptive size, children, EFL, test, assessment, Pic-lex