Examining the relationship between computer familiarity and performance oncomputer-based language tasks

The planned introduction of a computer-based Test of English as a Foreign L anguage (TOEFL) test raises concerns that language proficiency will be conf ounded with computer proficiency, introducing construct-irrelevant variance to the measurement of examinees' English-language abilities. We administer ed a questionnaire focusing on examinees' computer familiarity to 90,000 TO EFL test takers. A group of 1,200 "low-computer-familiar" and "high-compute r-familiar" examinees from 12 international sites worked through a computer tutorial and a set of 60 computer-based TOEFL test items. We found no mean ingful relationship between level of computer familiarity and level of perf ormance on the computerized language tasks after controlling for English la nguage ability. We concluded that no evidence exists of an adverse relation ship between computer familiarity and computer-based TOEFL test performance due to lack of prior computer experience.