A look at graduate students I've chaired or served on committee for — what they researched, and where they've gone since. If you're considering graduate study with me, this is a good place to see what that path can look like.
Graduate students I've chaired, most recently completed first. Each has confirmed they're comfortable being listed here.
Portfolio: Teaching Portfolio
Builds her teaching portfolio around a Communicative Language Teaching philosophy centered on student autonomy, authentic materials, and treating mistakes as a natural part of learning.
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Portfolio: Teaching Portfolio
Traces her path from English learner in Bangladesh to Graduate ESL Instructor at BYU's English Language Center, with a teaching philosophy grounded in relationship-building, learner autonomy, and formative assessment.
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Portfolio: Teaching Portfolio
Traces her path from self-taught English learner to material developer, driven by the shortage of quality ESL materials she encountered while teaching in Vietnam.
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Portfolio: English Teaching Portfolio
A full teaching portfolio spanning lesson plans, curriculum development, and assessment, with additional pages showcasing her work in her native Serbian and Croatian.
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Thesis: The Nonlinguistic Factors that Predict Spanish Oral Proficiency
Draws on data from 2,475 BYU Spanish learners to show that mission language experience and self-assessed speaking ability predict Oral Proficiency Interview (OPIc) scores better than formal academic study alone.
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Project: LinguaPalooza: Taking Language Learning Beyond the Classroom and into the Real World
Developed a program for extending language learning beyond the classroom into real-world settings and interactions.
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Thesis: Exploring the Gap Between Self-Assessed and Actual Language Proficiency: A Comparative Analysis of Japanese and Romance Language Learners
Compares how accurately learners of Japanese versus Romance languages judge their own proficiency, examining whether the size of the self-assessment gap differs by language family.
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Thesis: Predicting Speaking Proficiency with Fluency Features Using Machine Learning
Uses machine learning models trained on temporal fluency features to predict speaking proficiency ratings from speech samples.
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Thesis: Determining Factors in Self-Guided Language Learning: Comparing More and Less Successful Learners
Compares more and less successful self-guided language learners to identify the factors that distinguish them.
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Thesis: Language Ideology in the ACTFL Speaking Proficiency Guidelines
Examines the language ideologies embedded within the ACTFL Speaking Proficiency Guidelines themselves.
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Thesis: Examining the Willingness to Communicate (WTC) Scale with Advanced Foreign Language Learners
Validates a Willingness to Communicate scale specifically with advanced foreign language learners.
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Thesis: Explicit Instruction in Second Language Self-Assessment: Exploring the Potential for Improving Calibration Through Training
Tests whether explicit instruction in self-assessment skills can improve how accurately learners judge their own language ability.
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Project: The Creation of Items for a Listening Placement Test Item Bank in an Intensive English Program
Develops a bank of listening test items for placing students into an Intensive English Program.
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Thesis: Text-to-Speech Systems: Learner Perceptions of its Use as a Tool in the Language Classroom
Explores how language learners perceive and respond to text-to-speech technology as a classroom learning tool.
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Thesis: Portuguese and Chinese ESL Reading Behaviors Compared: An Eye-Tracking Study
Uses eye-tracking to compare how Portuguese- and Chinese-background ESL readers process English text.
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Project: A Validation Study of an ESL Literacy Test Used in Ghana
Conducts a validation study of an ESL literacy test used in an educational program in Ghana.
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Thesis: L1 and L2 Reading Behaviors by Proficiency Level: An English-Portuguese Eye-Tracking Study
Uses eye-tracking to compare first- and second-language reading behaviors across proficiency levels among English-Portuguese readers.
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Thesis: A Comparison of Mobile and Computer Receptive Language ESL Tests
Compares outcomes between mobile-based and computer-based administration of the same language test.
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Thesis: Rubric Rating with MFRM vs. Randomly Distributed Comparative Judgment: A Comparison of Two Approaches to Second-Language Writing Assessment
Compares many-facet Rasch rating with randomly distributed comparative judgment as two approaches to scoring second-language writing; later published in Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice.
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Thesis: Performance Self-Appraisal Calibration of ESL Students on a Proficiency Reading Test
Examines how accurately ESL students judge their own performance on a multiple-choice reading comprehension test.
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Thesis: An Analysis of Rehearsed Speech Characteristics on the Oral Proficiency Interview—Computer (OPIc)
Analyzes linguistic features that distinguish rehearsed from spontaneous speech on the English OPIc; later published in Language Testing in Asia.
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Thesis: The Impact of Changing TOEFL Cut-Scores on University Admissions
Examines how changes to TOEFL cut-scores affect university admissions decisions for international students.
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Project: Investigating the Use of the ACTFL Can-Do Statements in a Self-Assessment for Student Placement in an Intensive English Program
Evaluates how well ACTFL can-do statement self-assessments predict appropriate placement for students entering an Intensive English Program; later published in System.
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Thesis: Investigating the Effects of Rater's Second Language Learning Background and Familiarity with Test-Taker's First Language on Speaking Test Scores
Examines whether a rater's own second-language learning background and familiarity with an examinee's native language affects the speaking scores they assign.
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Thesis: The Effect of Prompt Accent on Elicited Imitation Assessments in English as a Second Language
Investigates whether the accent of a recorded prompt speaker affects examinee performance on an English elicited imitation test; later published in Papers in Language Testing and Assessment.
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Thesis: Exploring the Language of Assessment on Reading Proficiency Exams of Advanced Learners of Russian
Examines how the language used to ask comprehension questions affects performance on advanced L2 reading assessments for learners of Russian; later published as a book chapter (Springer).
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Beyond the 26 students I've chaired above, I've also served on the committee for 14 additional MA theses and 6 PhD dissertations. Those aren't individually profiled here since this page focuses on students I directly chaired, but the complete list is available on the CV / Résumé page.