James Dean Brown’s 50 Years of Work in Second Language Studies: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Panahi and Mohebbi review James Dean Brown’s 50-years of research in language testing, curriculum development and research statistics with reference to an impressionistic framework for analysis containing two components with their subcomponents: Annotations (i.e., briefing and implications) and main concepts and themes (i.e., testing and teaching terminology, research design, research instruments, data analysis, and domains). The review was carried out in two phases: In Phase I, we (Ali Panahi and Hassan Mohebbi) reviewed Brown’s all works and extracted approximately 1100 main concepts and themes leading to 28 main entries for testing and teaching terminology. The issues he has examined are much more extensive; the first 10 topics and themes most widely investigated, in the order of frequency, are language testing and assessment, research and statistics, curriculum development and language programs, cloze tests, CRTs and NRTs, TESOL, ESL, applied linguistics and language testing, placement, standardized and proficiency tests, connected speech and reduced forms, pragmatics tests and issues, and reliability and validity. In Phase II, JD Brown provides a discussion and his personal reflections on the systematic review.