De ja/nee Woordenschattoets: Klaar Voor Gebruik in de Klas?

The Yes/No vocabulary test seems to be a promising tool for measuring the receptive vocabulary size of foreign language learners. The test consists of items that are either words or pseudowords and the subjects have to indicate whether or not they know the meaning of these items.This article reports on two experiments in which the Yes/No test was used with French speaking learners of Dutch. In a first experiment, the format was used as a placement test in order to measure the extent to which the subjects had mastered the basic vocabulary of Dutch. In a second experiment, the test was computerised and followed by a translation task in order to obtain a concurrent validation. Both experiments were characterised by a rather low reliability and the presence of a bias in the data. The second experiment also revealed an unconvincing correlation between the results obtained on the Yes/No test and those obtained on the translation test. The accurateness of the Yes/No vocabulary test for Dutch is thus questioned and suggestions made for further research in order to improve this test format.