Cambridge English: Business Certificates – Research

Cambridge English: Business Certificates are high-quality, international exams specifically designed to develop work-focused English language skills.

The exams use authentic work-related tasks and activities for practical use in the workplace.

The Speaking test is face-to-face to create a more realistic test of communicating successfully in study and work.

The following documents describe the development of the exam and our continuous quality programmes which have made the exam such good preparation for business-related study and work.

• Studies in Language Testing 17
  Issues in Testing Business English: The revision of the Cambridge Business
  English Certificates, O’Sullivan, B (2006).

• Research Notes 9
  Reviewing the retraining of BEC Oral Examiners (2002).

• Research Notes 13
  Evaluating the success of the revised BEC (Business English Certificate) Speaking Tests, Booth, D (2003).

• Research Notes 27
  Publishing vocabulary lists for BEC Preliminary, PET and KET examinations. Street, J and Ingham, K (2007).

• Research Notes 30
  Developing revised assessment scales for Main Suite and BEC Speaking tests, Galaczi, E and ffrench, A (2007).

• Research Notes 37
  Some evidence to support the alignment of an LSP Writing test to the CEFR, Bateman, H (2009).

• Research Notes 40
  The use of BEC as a measurement instrument in Higher Education in China, Chen X, He, M and Bateman, H (2010).

• Research Notes 42
  A study of the context and cognitive validity of a Cambridge English: BEC Vantage (BEC Vantage) test of Writing, Bateman, H (2010).

• Research Notes 43
  Composition and revision in computer-based written assessment, Chambers, L (2011).

The following publications explain more about:

• the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)

• our involvement in the early development of the framework

• how Cambridge English exams relate to this internationally accepted method for describing language ability.

  • Research Notes: Issue 37
    This edition of Research Notes focuses on Cambridge English exams and the CEFR.

  • Studies in Language Testing 33
    Aligning Tests with the CEFR: Reflections on using the Council of Europe's draft Manual, Martyniuk, W. (ed) (2010).

  • The Council of Europe (2001), The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

  • Van Ek, J A and Trim, J L M (1998) Threshold 1990, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

  • Jones, N and Saville, N (2007) Scales and Frameworks, in Spolsky, B and Hult, F M (Eds) The Handbook of Educational Linguistics, Wiley-Blackwell: Chichester.

Our Research and Validation team is the largest dedicated research team of any UK-based language assessment organisation. We have experts in fields as varied as:

• applied linguistics
• item response theory and item banking
• psycholinguistics
• second language acquisition
• quality management systems.

We share much of our research with the wider language assessment community, through publications and by presenting at conferences and other events around the world.

Find out more about the work of our Research and Validation team