LexMAL: A quick and reliable lexical test for Malay speakers

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Language assessment
• Bilingualism research

Background:

• Objective language proficiency measures are superior to self-ratings for bilinguals.
• Quick, accessible language proficiency tests are lacking.
• Existing vocabulary tests like LexTALE have inspired similar tools for various languages.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce the Lexical Test for Malay Speakers (LexMAL).
• Provide a reliable and objective measure of Malay language proficiency for both L1 and L2 speakers.
• Validate LexMAL's effectiveness and accessibility for researchers.

Main Methods:

• Developed an initial 180-item LexMAL prototype.
• Evaluated the prototype with 120 Malay speakers (60 L1, 60 L2).
• Selected 90 items based on discriminative power and item response theory for the final version, validated in a second experiment.

Main Results:

• LexMAL reliably discriminated between Malay L1 and L2 speakers.
• LexMAL scores correlated significantly with other Malay language task performances.
• LexMAL demonstrated higher validity than self-rated proficiency measures.

Conclusions:

• LexMAL is a valid and reliable tool for assessing Malay language proficiency.
• The test effectively differentiates between native and non-native speakers.
• LexMAL is freely available, supporting future bilingualism and language acquisition research.