An investigation of a nationwide exam from a critical language testing perspective

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating two main test parties’ viewpoints—those of university teachers and TEFL MA students—regarding a nationwide Exam to find out their opinions about using the current method of the TEFL MA University Entrance Exam, those aspects of the test which can be improved and the amount of power or control that these two main test parties own at different phases of the Exam.The survey also examined the washback effect of this exam on university teachers’ methodologies and instructions. To this end seven university professors and sixty TEFL students who had passed the exam were selected using a convenience random sampling. Subsequently, a validated researcher-made questionnaire was administered to the students. In order to collect more reliable data, some students were randomly selected to be interviewed so as to cross-check the data collected through the questionnaire. The results of this study indicated that all the university professors and the majority of the students demanded to have control over the content, the time of the administration and other issues related to the TEFL MA Entrance Exam. They claimed that they had no power in the test development and administration processes. They also believed that the test should serve as an indicator of language ability or knowledge, rather than test-taking skills. In addition, the results indicated that the exam had a negligible effect on professors’ academic behavior and teaching techniques, hence the low degree of curriculum alignment.

Keywords:

• Questionnaire
• interview
• TEFL MA examination
• critical language testing
• washback

Public Interest Statement

Critical language testing is an important concept in language testing. Decisions about individuals may be made without their having any control over the process and content of language tests. A nationwide was examined in terms of language testing issues in this paper. A questionnaire was constructed and distributed to some students who had already taken the test. The results showed that test takers wished to have control over the testing process. But they did not have any control over anything. In other words, asymmetricality prevailed throughout the testing process. Policy makers must have imposed their ideologies over the test takers who were powerless. We also examined washback or curriculum alignment in this paper. Washback is defined as the effect of testing on pedagogy. In other words, we wanted to see if teachers and professors tailored their teaching according to the demands of the test. The results revealed that few teachers or professors did curriculum alignment. Their teaching was not informed by test results.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohammad Salehi

Mohammad Salehi is a language testing specialist living and working in Iran. He has written papers on topics like alternative assessment, validity, C-Test and cloze test, reading assessment, grammaticality judgment tests, differential item functioning, needs analysis, receptive intelligibility, motivation, self-regulated learning, learner autonomy and acquisition. His main interest is language testing and second language acquisition research. He is interested in any type of research that brings language testing and second language acquisition together. Recently he has taken a keen interest in critical language testing.

M. Tarjoman

M. Tarjoman received her BA degree in English Language from Gilan University, Iran in 1999 and her MA degree in TEFL from Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran in 2016. Now she is working at high schools as an English teacher.