Test design and development by linguistic & aviation experts

• Technology is a result of many years of research in speech recognition, statistical modeling, linguistics, and testing theory
• The VAET is being developed under a CRDA with the FAA
• VAET test items reviewed by experts in ICAO phraseology
• Test development headed by faculty from Stanford University

Data collection that accommodates a wide variety of accents

• Several hundred native and non-native voices are used to develop VAET
• Both Pilots and Air Traffic Controller responses are used for development and validation of VAET

Patented speech processing system

• The computer system tracks linguistic, indexical and paralinguistic characteristics of the spoken input of users, measures several speech quality aspects such as the response latency, speaking rate and pronunciation of the user, and combines that information with the relative accuracy of the linguistic content of the user’s utterance to derive a set of diagnostic scores and an overall oral interaction score

Validation performed using standard psychometric methods

• Split-half, Cronbach’s alpha scores for reliability
• Data driven validity evidence