1. Response Pattern of Heritage Learners
in a Chinese Placement Test
Wei-Li Hsu

2. The Placement Test
 3 sections: Vocabulary and Structure (V & S), Reading
Sentences (RS), and Reading Passages (RP).
 V & S has 45 items, RS has 50 items, and RP has19
items for 4 passages making 114 items in total.
 V & S section is written in Pinyin. RS and RP are
written in Chinese characters.

3. Background Information Sheet
 Prior experience of learning Chinese in school settings
 Native languages of the examinees, their parents, and
other family members

4. Language Backgrounds
 Heritage language learners (HLers)
 Foreign language learners (FLers)
 Native Mandarin speakers (NMSs)
 Native Cantonese speakers (NCSs)

5. Introduction to Rasch Model
 Responses are influenced by person ability and
item difficulty.
 The more capable person and the more difficult
item have the higher measures.
 Misfit shows the unexpected responses based on
the expectations of the Rasch model.
 Bias means systematic violations to the model’s
expectation.

6. Procedures
 The first Rasch analysis was done to isolate and
remove the misfitting persons.
 The second Rasch analysis was done to isolate
and remove the misfitting items.
 The third Rasch analysis was done to identify
biased items for HLers.

7. Vertical Ruler

8. Summary of Misfitting Persons
Examinee #
Language Background
Measure
Infit
Mean Square
Infit
Z-Score
6
FLer
-1.13
1.23
2.00
10
HLer
-0.32
1.28
0.31
24
HLer
0.09
1.33
3.70
33
NCS lived in HK
until the age of 9
0.47
1.27
2.90
39
HLer
2.47
0.69
-1.80

9. Person Ability Measures
0.71-1.23

10. Summary of Misfitting Items
Measure
Model S.E.
Infit
Mean Square
Infit
Z-Score
1.3
1.62
0.44
1.98
3.30
1.10
3.85
0.69
1.66
1.30
2.5
-2.74
0.45
1.62
2.20
5.1
-0.54
0.38
1.74
3.30
8.1a
0.02
0.38
1.71
3.10
Item #

11. Summary of Bias Analysis
NMSs
NCSs
Harsh Lenient
Harsh Lenient
HLers
Harsh
FLers
Lenient
Harsh
Lenient
Total
Harsh
Lenient
Item difficulty
> 2.00
1.00 to 1.99
7.6
0.00 to 0.99
-0.99 to -0.01
8.4c, 8.6g 7.1, 7.5
1
7.5
3.3
3
2
1
-1.99 to -1.00
-2.99 to -2.00
< -3.00
Total
1
2
3
1
4
3

12. Output of Bias Analysis
harsh
lenient
Word insertion
Qs

13. Distracter Analysis of Item 7.5
NMSs (n = 6)
0
n
1
2
3
NCSs (n = 4)
4
5
0
5
1
Mean
1.62
1.68
SD
1.83
1
1
2
1
3
HLers (n= 19)
4
5
0
1
1
-3.18 2.21 -2.45
1.13
1
1
12
2
3
2
-3.55 0.00 -0.82
1.20 0.60
FLers (n = 18)
4
5
3
0
1
-0.24 -0.35
2.38
1
4
2
7
3
1
4
2
5
2
2
-1.75 2.34 0.87 -0.09 -0.20 0.15
1.81 0.74
0.00 0.71 0.88

14. Conclusions
 There is no significant difference between HLers
and FLers in terms of ability measures on this
placement test.
 HLers exhibit the most complicated pattern
among the four groups regarding misfit and item
bias based on the Rasch model.
 HLers have an advantage in answering word
insertion questions and acquiring Chinese word
order over FLers.

15. Questions and Suggestions?
Thank you! Mahalo!