Contact Information
4080 Foreign Language Building, MC-168
707 S. Mathews Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801
Research Interests
Language testing and assessment
English for academic purposes
Educational measurement
Quantitative research methods
Research Description
My research broadly focuses on speaking and writing assessment. My specific research interests include scale development and validation, rater behavior and training, assessment literacy for language teachers, and test score use in educational settings.
Education
Ph.D., English (Second Language Studies), Purdue University, 2015
M.A., TESOL, Ohio State University, 2009
B.A., English, Wuhan University, China, 2008
Grants
2015-2016, SPAAN Research Grant, CaMLA (with Shelley Staples, University of Arizona); Project: Investigating lexico-grammatical complexity as construct validity evidence for the ECPE writing tasks: A multidimensional analysis.
2016-2018, British Council Aptis Assessment Research Grant (with Ha Ram Kim, UIUC, and Ji Young Kim, UCLA); Project: Complexity, accuracy and fluency features of speaking performances on Aptis across different CEFR levels
2018-2019, IELTS Research Grant, British Council / IDP: IELTS, Australia (with Shelley Staples, University of Arizona); Project: Investigating the cognitive and social aspects of IELTS speaking performances across proficiency levels: Comparing the CAF-based and register-linguistics- based analyses
Courses Taught
EIL 460 Principles of Language Testing
LING 489 Theoretical Foundations of Second Language Acquisition
EIL 411 Introduction to TESL Methodology
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, Linguistics
Supervisor, English Placement Test/Oral English Assessment Interview, Linguistics
Associate Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures
Associate Professor, Educational Psychology
Associate Professor, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies
Associate Professor, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
Recent Publications
Giraldo, F., & Yan, X. (2025). Evaluating an Online Assessment Course: Teachers’ Voices on Their Language Assessment Literacy. Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development, 27(1), 97-114. https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v27n1.113304
Isaacs, T., & Yan, X. (2025). Language Testing behind the scenes: New capabilities, groundbreaking developments, and disruptive forces. Language Testing, 42(1), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/02655322241288490
Kang, O., Kostromitina, M., Yan, X., Thomson, R. I., & Isaacs, T. (2025). Test Takers’ Attitudes Toward Varieties of Accents in Listening Tasks of the Duolingo English Test (2021 test version). Language Assessment Quarterly, 22(1), 29-55. https://doi.org/10.1080/15434303.2024.2448963
Martin Loya, M. R., Meadan, H., & Yan, X. (2025). Professional Development in Autism and Multilingualism for Behavior Analysts: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-025-06730-1
Yan, X., Lei, Y., & Pan, Y. (2025). Diving Deep Into the Relationship Between Speech Fluency and Second Language Proficiency: A Meta-Analysis. Language Learning. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12701