A new test for China? Stages in the development of an assessment for professional purposes

Jin, Yan; Hamp‐Lyons, Liz

doi:10.1080/0969594x.2014.1003794

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…This will also help the test users appropriately utilize certified test scores. Alothough there have been a number of investigators into the language of business, such as Forey & Nunan (2002), Gray (2010), Jin and Hamp-Lyons (2015), and Nickerson (2005), none of these researchers explored the English needs of business professionals in the Taiwanese workplace.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consequences of test use: a case study of employers’ voice on the social impact of English certification exit requirements in Taiwan

Pan

Roever

2016

Lang Test Asia

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Background: This study investigates the social impact of a policy requiring university graduates to pass an English proficiency test by examining the consequences of test use in the workplace in Taiwan.Methods: Interviews were conducted with 19 business people in charge of recruiting potential employees in 17 industries across Taiwan. All these 19 employers hired the gratudes from a technological university in southern Taiwan. These interviews sought to discover the importance of English certification as an element of job hunting,the opinions of businesses regarding various certification tests, and their attitudes towards the exit requirement. Results and conclusions:Findings indicate that although these employers were favorably disposed towards this policy, only 13 % of them required English certificates as a hiring criterion. Another finding was that 53 % of employers regarded the certificates as evidence that applicants who possessed them were diligent and likely to be hard-working employees. These informants interpreted tests differently from testers, focusing on cultural notions of what personal qualities tests highlight rather than on language ability. Due to this and other factors, the impact of the test remained weak.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consequences of test use: a case study of employers’ voice on the social impact of English certification exit requirements in Taiwan

Pan

Roever

2016

Lang Test Asia

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“…Some possible reasons that prompt it include internal institutional policy, consideration on the needs of test-takers and test-users, availability of the test sources and consideration on the expected outcomes. Most importantly, justifying students' needs to the new format of test is possible since it is considered as an effort to analyze their competencies in the most appropriate way based on their characteristics [10]. That is why there is urgency in constructing English proficiency test in accordance to aforementioned reasons.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructing Test Specification for Standardized Test of Academic English Proficiency (STAcEP)

Gestanti¹,

Mufanti²,

Nimasari³

2019

Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 3rd English Language and Literature International Conference, ELLiC, 27th April 2019, Sem

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This present study aims to determine what aspects should be considered in constructing test specification for localized language proficiency test administered in a private university in Indonesia. Employing the CEFR for language as the basic framework, this study involves the analysis of CEFR document and interview with four experts on language testing in order to construct the intended test specification as the basis of a language test before it is further developed. The result of the study implies that there are five aspects with more than ten components in the initial consideration of test specification that should be considered. They include construct of the test, usefulness of the test, content and format of the test, technical features of the test and required standards of the test. The analyzed information regarding those aspects, then, is combined to construct the proposed test specification of STAcEP test.

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confidence: 99%

On test development and accuracy in self-assessment

Hopfenbeck

2015

Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice

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EDITORIALOn test development and accuracy in self-assessmentThe opening article by Jin and Hamp-Lyons (2015) in this regular issue reports on an empirical investigation of the need for a new test for the assessment of English for professional purposes in China. As the authors point out, it is not often the need for a new test is investigated empirically; tests are usually introduced by educational policy-makers or suggested by commercial organisations for the test's potential market value and profits. With reference to Shohamy (2001), Jin and Hamp-Lyons remind us that the voices of stakeholders such as the learners, teachers and potential users of the test are seldom heard. The article therefore offers an important contribution to the field of language testing by reporting the initial phases of the development of a new language assessment. In the first phase, an online survey was conducted collecting data on stakeholders' perceptions of the necessity of the test (N = 327), representing three stakeholder groups: (1) university students, (2) university graduates employed by joint ventures or multinational companies and (3) university teachers of advanced English courses. In the second phase, the researchers analysed five English language tests, (Business English Certificate -Higher, Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), CET-6, Test for English Majors and Public English Test System) to see whether existing tests would fit the need for the new test, or inform the development of the new proposed test. The first two tests are developed for an international marked, while the final three are developed for China. Finally, the researchers reviewed six language frameworks (Foreign Service Institute, or Interagency Language Table, Australian Second Language Proficiency Ratings (ASLPR), Proficiency Guidelines of American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Can-Do statements of Association of Language Testers in Europe, CEFR, and Canadian Language Benchmarks) to evaluate whether any of them could serve as guidelines for the design of the new assessment, particularly the test's specifications. Data analysis of the survey revealed some discrepancies among the stakeholder groups on the perceptions of the needs of communication in English in China, but all groups agreed on the need to develop a test of EPP for Chinese learners of English at an advanced level. The analysis of the five tests further showed that none of the Chinese tests on the marked were sophisticated enough for the purpose of assessing English proficiency at an advanced level for multinational professional workplaces in China. The review of the existing frameworks also showed that the level descriptions were too general for any practical use for the test developers, and more related to vocational purposes than professional purposes. The authors therefore argued for the need to develop a new test in China with real value for potential employers. The study is a timely reminder of the importance for researchers and test-designers to inves...

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A new test for China? Stages in the development of an assessment for professional purposes

Cited by 3 publications

References 38 publications

Consequences of test use: a case study of employers’ voice on the social impact of English certification exit requirements in Taiwan

Consequences of test use: a case study of employers’ voice on the social impact of English certification exit requirements in Taiwan

Constructing Test Specification for Standardized Test of Academic English Proficiency (STAcEP)

On test development and accuracy in self-assessment

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