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History

E-CAP was developed through years of testing and evaluation in both academic and corporate environments. The E-CAP program was first offered at Yale University in 1993, and over the last fifteen years, E-CAP has become the educational assessment tool of choice for a variety of organizations and for individuals who want to explore and improve their communication. The primary goal of E-CAP is to provide a rigorous assessment of communication skills coupled with content-rich educational advice.

E-CAP is now a service of the Executive Voice, LLC, a communications consulting group (www.executive-voice.com). The development and assessment teams are based in New Haven, Connecticut.

Uses

E-CAP is valuable for a spectrum of assessment and development purposes. Universities use it as a convenient tool for helping students to improve their communication skills. Companies rely on E-CAP to address the competencies of their staff, especially colleagues who are on track for promotion but whose communication abilities are holding them back. Private individuals use E-CAP to learn about the effectiveness of their spoken language and to find ways to increase their communication power in work and social environments. 

E-CAP Design

The test assesses only spoken language. Research has shown that an individual's oral communication provides the most accurate indication of actual facility in a language. Speech content and style reveals latent grammatical structures, vocabulary range, context awareness, cognitive approaches, strategic choices, and many other linguistic elements. To elicit a representative sample of spoken responses, the test begins with casual, conversational questions and then moves toward more complex scenarios requiring different communication strategies. 

Question Format

E-CAP relies on an extensive library of test questions and variable response formats. Each test presents a selection of 15 questions requiring a variety of communication tasks, from simple descriptions to scenarios needing complex responses. Some test questions request an immediate response, as in conversational interaction, while other items allow the individual to prepare their response for up to 60 seconds before speaking. The time allotted for the recording of spoken answers ranges from 30-90 seconds. The  responses are recorded on-line and are stored securely on our server.  The on-line testing environment uses flash-based recording technology and MX servers for streaming content and high quality speech samples.

Analysis of Responses

Responses are compared to standard benchmarks developed from thousands of speech samples in more than seventy-five separate areas for indicators of communication competency. Test responses are evaluated by our team of trained experts. In addition to mastery of our specialized psychometric assessment procedures, many of our raters have specialized training from the Educational Testing Services, the makers of the SAT®, GRE®, TOEFL®, and other standardized tests.  The rating team performs a rigorous assessment of communication skills, ranging from diction to communication strategy. They also coach you on further skill development in the optional advisory report. Every evaluation and report is supervised by a Ph.D. level expert.