Language Background and Assessment in the Physical Sciences

Examinations and the ESL student – more evidence of particular disadvantages

“…More narrowly if examinations are used to assess culturally diverse classes then, at the very least; they should not be the exclusive mode of assessment (Logan and Hazel 1999;De Vita 2000). If they are used as part of the assessment process then the significance of the weighting of the examinations cannot be ignored (Dalziel 1998) and hence consideration could be given towards positively biasing the weightings in the direction of best performance.…”

“…Interactions have been noted between (English) language and type of questions, whether it is open-ended or multiple-choice (Jenkins and Holley 1990) as well as even more subtle dynamics between gender, language and question type (Logan and Hazel 1999). International students seem to be particularly handicapped, compared to their English peers, when assessment is based on timed, closed examinations rather than assignments (De Vita 2000) but less so on the purely multiple-choice format (Clarke, Heaney, and Gatfield 2005).…”

“…Ackers 1997), some find that international students outperform their local classmates (e.g. Dobson, Sharma, and Calderon 1998) and some assert that students who have English as a Second Language (ESL) have assessment disadvantages compared to those for whom English is the Primary Language (EPL) (Morrison et al 2005) even in science-based and quantitative degrees (Logan and Hazel 1999).…”

Generic Skills and Collaborative Learning in Tertiary Education: An Empirical Examination of Student Perceptions

“…There is mounting evidence that L2 students (and L3 and higher) are at a disadvantage compared to L1 students, as language background in the language of instruction is shown to impact on academic outcomes (Jenkins & Holley, 1990;Farrell & Ventura, 1998;Logan & Hazel, 1999;Strauss, 2001;Brooks & Adams, 2002;Webb, 2002;Downs, 2006). A further problem is that international students are not the only students susceptible to language proficiency issues.…”

“…In this study, conducted in the USA, they found that NESB students scored higher in MCQs and lower in open-ended questions compared to ESB students. Logan & Hazel's (1999) Australian study examined the role of language and gender in the assessment of first-year physics students. Gender was found to interact with language background, their general finding being that the performance of male and female ESB students and male NESB students was roughly equivalent, but the performance of female NESB students was lower.…”