Editorial notes

Welcome to issue 50 of Research Notes, our quarterly publication reporting on matters relating
to research, test development and validation within University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations
(Cambridge ESOL). The theme of this issue is the impact of Cambridge English exams in a variety of
contexts. The issue benefits from the guest editorship of Dr Jayanti Banerjee, Research Director at
Cambridge Michigan Language Assessments.

Nick Saville outlines Cambridge ESOL’s approach to
investigating the impact of its exams, and the following six studies represent different aspects of this
approach.

The first two articles describe studies that are investigating the impact of Cambridge English exams
as part of larger educational reform initiatives. Hanan Khalifa, Thuyanh Nguyen and Christine Walker
describe the first phase of a study investigating the effect of introducing Cambridge English: Young
Learners into an intensive English programme in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam while Lucy Chambers,
Mark Elliott and Hou Jianguo’s study investigates the impact of using Cambridge English exams in a
pilot programme in Hebei province in China.

The next pair of articles are baseline studies. The first by Angeliki Salamoura, Miranda Hamilton
and Viviane Octor explores the anticipated effects of introducing Cambridge English exams in
the Mission laïque française schools, an international association of schools teaching the French
curriculum. The next article by Karen Ashton, Angeliki Salamoura and Emilio Diaz describes a
preliminary investigation into the impact on stakeholders of a bilingual programme developed by a
federation of Spanish religious schools in Madrid.

The last two articles focus on stakeholder perceptions of Cambridge English exams in China.
Xiangdong Gu, Hanan Khalifa, Qiaozhen Yan and Jie Tian describe a pilot study investigating
Cambridge English: Young Learners exams in China. The last article by Xiangdong Gu and Nick Saville
focuses on parents’ attitudes and perceptions of Cambridge English for Schools exams.