Teachers' assessment literacy has recently captured the attention of scholars across various educational contexts. The literature has it that there is a gap between teachers' assessment practices and national assessment policies. The present study investigated the assessment needs of Iranian EFL teachers in the wake of the new assessment reform, which aims at replacing traditional discrete point testing policies with performance testing. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 EFL head teachers. In addition, documents related to the curriculum reform were also closely examined. Inductive coding of the data showed that to meet the demands of the noted reform, teachers' current perceptions of language assessment need to change. Furthermore, teachers need training in both knowledge and skills of language assessment. More specifically, teachers need training in developing rubrics for use in assessing the productive skills of speaking and writing. They also need to develop literacy in devising higher-order thinking skills in assessing reading and listening comprehension. Finally, as non-native speakers of English, Iranian English teachers need better English aural/oral skills.
Background: Assessment policies and practices are key to the success of curriculum innovations. Therefore, large-scale ELT innovations always include changes in assessment too. Thinking that Iranian students were not enabled to communicate in English after six years of English education in public schools, educational policy makers have recently embarked on a new curriculum that is thought to be a departure from traditional reading and grammar approach towards a communicative one. This study investigated the impact of a recent language assessment reform (LAR) on Iranian English teachers' assessment practices. Methods: To this end, four teachers participated in a focused group interview (FGI) session. Teacher-made tests were also collected and scrutinized. Both FGI and test data were content analyzed and the recurring themes were derived. Results: It was revealed that managerial, institutional, and individual barriers stand in the way of the reform. First, the managerial, technocratic approach to reform implementation has caused teachers not to take ownership of the reform. Secondly, at the institutional level, two obstacles were identified in the way of reform: inadequate resources within schools and the accountability demands that foster grade inflation. Finally, regarding professional competencies, teachers appeared to be largely unprepared to conduct language assessments consistent with the LAR demands. In particular, they seemed to have difficulties with the contents of their assessments, with the reasons for doing assessments, and with adjusting their assessments in keeping with LAR communicative aspirations. Conclusions: To remedy the situation, action should be taken to convince teachers to buy into the reform and to create opportunities for teachers to become adequately literate in language assessment.
The credibility of conclusions arrived at in quantitative research depends, to a large extent, on the quality of data collection instruments used to quantify language and non-language constructs. Despite this, research into data collection instruments used in Applied Linguistics and particularly in the thesis genre remains limited. This study examined the reported reliability of 211 quantitative instruments used in two samples of domestic and international theses in Applied Linguistics. The following qualities in measuring instruments were used to code the data: the instrument origin, instrument reliability, reliability facets examined, reliability computation procedures utilized, and the source of reliability reported (i.e., primary or cited). It was found that information about instrument origin was provided in the majority of cases. However, for 93 instruments, no reliability index was reported and this held true for the measurement of both language and non-language constructs. Further, the most frequently examined facet of reliability was internal consistency estimated via Cronbach’s alpha. In most cases, primary reliability for the actual data was reported. Finally, reliability was more frequently reported in the domestic corpus than in the international corpus. Findings are discussed in light of discursive and sociomaterial considerations and a few implications are suggested.
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