My research has been closely linked to my extensive teaching experience and my expertise in test development and validation. My five years of work experience in the Oral English Proficiency Program (OEPP) as a lead graduate testing coordinator, research assistant, or graduate instructor has translated into four (co)publications (Cheng & Kauper, 2010; Mishima & Cheng, 2017; Yan, Cheng, & Ginther, 2018; Cheng, 2022). These four publications feature a valuable curricular component of ENGL 620, an effective technology-enhanced teaching approach, a rigorous validation study on the Oral English Proficiency Test (OEPT), and a successful undergraduate volunteer program, respectively. My L2 writing teaching experience in the ENGL 106i course led to a 2014 publication about the pragmatic features in instructors’ written comments on international undergraduate students’ writing drafts.

My award-winning dissertation project used a computer-mediated pragmatics assessment that I developed to compare the oral English request performances by low and high speaking proficiency Chinese students learning English in China with the test performances by low and high proficiency Chinese students studying at Purdue. This dissertation research has been published as two book chapters (Cheng, 2016; Cheng, 2020). The first book chapter was included in an edited volume in the reputable Studies in Language Testing series. Some of my dissertation findings have also informed my curriculum design for a PLaCE (Purdue Language and Cultural Exchange) short course on email writing and, previously, the Bilsland Strategic Initiatives Fellowship project where I developed and implemented a short course on L2 pragmatics to international graduate students and spouses at Purdue.

My work with international undergraduate students in the PLaCE program has translated into two co-publications (Lee, Allen, Cheng, Watson, & Watson, 2020; Cheng & Li, 2023), the first of which explored the relationships between ENGL 110 students’ self-efficacy and self-regulated learning strategies. The second publication focusing on PLaCE, i.e., Cheng & Li (2023) documented ENGL 110–111 students’ language proficiency development and PLaCE program effectiveness through pre-post gain scores on the elicited imitation section on the PLaCE in-house Assessment of College English–International (ACE-In). 

In an effort to enhance the impact of Purdue in-house English proficiency tests along with Drs. April Ginther and Nancy Kauper, I conducted a demonstration of the ACE-In Exam, Admin, and Rater web applications to a group of interested test purchasers from other U.S. universities and the University of Copenhagen in 2016. When the University of Copenhagen later explored the option of administering the ACE-In to a group of their Danish faculty members, I coordinated the ratings of test responses and shared my knowledge and experience with Dr. Slobodanka Dimova at the University of Copenhagen, particularly in regard to score reporting.  

I regularly reflect on and strive to disseminate to a wider audience in and outside Purdue, the successful teaching and assessment practices in the PLaCE and OEPP programs. For instance, I cited some of these successful teaching and assessment practices as examples in an encyclopedia entry on diagnostic assessments (Cheng, 2019). In September 2021, I was invited to lead discussions about this encyclopedia entry with the English Language Education majors at Universidad del Norte in an upper-division undergraduate course on classroom assessment. In late 2022, while reflecting on rater training practices, I proposed designing a Brightspace course for lecturer-raters of the ACE-In test responses and evaluate the efficacy of using this comprehensive Brightspace course for training new raters and conducting regular rater calibration. This proposal won one of the two Brightspace Innovation Program grants for the two-year grant period of 2023–2024, awarded to a faculty and staff member who applied from any of Purdue's four campuses.

It is my professional goal to make impactful contributions to the programs I work for (e.g., OEPP, PLaCE, Student Success) and the international student populations we serve, with my expertise and experience in language assessment, program evaluation, instructional design and technology, and intercultural development. My work on a few versions of the ACE-In and their practice test, the Oral Proficiency Assessment via Zoom (OPA-z), two versions of the OEPT and their practice test, as well as the OEPT initial rater training program has all testified about my expertise in quantitative data analysis, language testing, and instruction/assessment technologies. In addition, none of the above testing and assessment related massive undertakings would have been possible without effective communication and collaboration with software engineers, digital proctoring services, and other partnership entities at and beyond Purdue University. Since 2018, I have also overseen the design, implementation, analysis, and report of PLaCE-internal Qualtrics surveys used to collect students’ evaluations of instructors’ teaching effectiveness in the PLaCE short courses (60+ per year) and outreach language-training programs as well as the efficacy of these courses and programs.

To sum up, I would describe myself as an experienced English language educator, a specialist in language assessment and program evaluation, an insightful and practical researcher, as well as a resourceful administrator. As a piece of evidence, my professional qualifications were attested by the speedy approval of my self-petitioned U.S. permanent residency (a.k.a. "Green Card") application in which I presented myself as an international person possessing extraordinary abilities and holding an advanced degree from a Research One (R1) U.S. university.