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
Professor, Linguistics
Supervisor, English Placement Test/Oral English Assessment Interview, Linguistics
Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures
Professor, Educational Psychology
Professor, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
Recent Publications
Chuang, P. L., & Yan, X. (2025). Language assessment in the era of generative artificial intelligence: Opportunities, challenges, and future directions. System, 134, Article 103846. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2025.103846
Fan, T., & Yan, X. (2025). EFL Development of Micro Reading Abilities: The Impact of Three Intervention Approaches Informed by Diagnostic Language Assessment. Language Assessment Quarterly, 22(2), 164-192. https://doi.org/10.1080/15434303.2025.2497819
Giraldo, F., & Yan, X. (2025). Conclusions. In Fostering Language Assessment Literacy: Materials, Methods, and Emerging Issues (pp. 208-218). Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003483915-15
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
Giraldo, F., & Yan, X. (2025). Fostering Language Assessment Literacy: Materials, Methods, and Emerging Issues. Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003483915