This study details the development of a local test designed to place university Spanish students (n = 719) into one of the four different course levels and to distinguish between traditional L2 learners and early bilinguals on the basis of their linguistic knowledge, regardless of the variety of Spanish they were exposed to. Early bilinguals include two groups—heritage learners (HLs), who were exposed to Spanish in their homes and communities growing up, and early L2 learners with extensive Spanish exposure, often through dual immersion education, who are increasingly enrolling in university Spanish courses and tend to pattern with HLs. Expert instructor judgment and learner corpora contributed to item development, and 12 of 15 written multiple-choice test items targeting early-acquired vocabulary had differential item functioning (DIF) according to the Mantel–Haenszel procedure, favoring HLs. Recursive partitioning revealed that vocabulary score correctly identified 597/603 (99%) of L2 learners as such, and the six HLs whose vocabulary scores incorrectly identified them as L2 learners were in the lowest placement groups. Vocabulary scores also correctly identified 100% of the early L2 learners in the sample (n = 7) as having a heritage profile. Implications for the local context and for placement testing in general are provided.

本研究详细介绍了一项旨在安置西班牙大学学生（n = 719) 进入四个不同的课程级别之一，并根据他们的语言知识区分传统的 L2 学习者和早期的双语者，无论他们接触的西班牙语种类如何。早期双语者包括两个群体——传统学习者 (HLs)，他们在成长过程中在家中和社区接触过西班牙语，以及经常通过双重沉浸式教育广泛接触西班牙语的早期 L2 学习者，他们越来越多地参加大学西班牙语课程并倾向于与 HL 搭配。根据 Mantel-Haenszel 程序，专家教师判断和学习者语料库有助于项目开发，针对早期获得的词汇的 15 个书面多项选择测试项目中有 12 个具有差异项目功能 (DIF)，有利于 HL。递归划分显示，词汇分数正确识别了 597/603 (99%) 的 L2 学习者，而词汇分数错误地将其识别为 L2 学习者的 6 个 HL 位于最低的安置组。词汇分数也正确识别了样本中 100% 的早期 L2 学习者（n  = 7) 具有遗产概况。提供了对当地环境和一般分班测试的影响。