Abstract
Recently, there has been a change from traditional language testing approaches, with a focus on psychometric properties towards critical language testing (CLT) with its social practice nature. CLT assumes tests not as neutral devices but as instruments of power and control which are related to authorities’ policy agendas to shape individuals’ and groups’ lives. Test consequences are not restricted to washback issues concerning teaching, learning, and instructional improvement. Rather, it goes far beyond educational context by illuminating issues such as values, ethics, biases, fairness, and test takers’ rights. With respect to CLT principles, this study attempts to critically examine the current status of language testing in Iranian education system. Two prominent high-stakes tests of Sampad Entrance Exam (SEE) and Nation-wide University Entrance Exam (NUEE) were used to uncover power relations, interpretations as well as the hidden intentions and consequences of tests in the educational system of Iran. Thus, teachers, administrators, test-takers and parents were selected (15 males/17 females) based on purposive sampling to participate in the research and semi-structured interview was adopted to gather in-depth data. The oppressive nature of tests, the marginalization of powerless testing parties, the asymmetrical power relationships, and the broader detrimental consequences and impacts of tests were obtained through Strauss and Corbin’s (Basics of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory, SAGE, Thousand Oaks, 1998) constant comparative method of data analysis. To counterbalance negative consequences of the high-stakes tests, they all agreed on multiple assessment sources of the construct and a dialogically-based assessment system to provide social justice and equal world while knowledge and power are shared by all testing parties. It was also suggested that the use of critical thinking and raising the stake holders’ consciousness can be used as the strategies against the test abuses, power, and its consequences.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Principle 2 | Critical testing persuades test-takers to promote a critical view about the tests and to interrogate tests and their values; |
Principle 3 | Critical testing sees test-takers as the political agents in a political milieu; |
Principle 7 | Critical testing takes this requirement into account to interrogate the test uses and purposes, whether they assess and measure knowledge or dictate and define knowledge; |
Principle 9 | Critical testing involves all the test stakeholders, whether the test is the product of testers or it takes into account all the stakeholders in an involved and democratic way; |
Principle 12 | Critical testing challenges the psychometric view of language testing and considers the interpretive view through which interpretations and meanings are constructed for the test scores; |
Principle 13 | Critical testing examines the meanings of the test scores, the extent to which they can be absolute or prescriptive and the degree to which they are subject to multiple interpretations, discussion, and negotiations; |
Principle 14 | Critical testing tackles the knowledge on the basis of which tests are produced, whether the knowledge is restricted to those in power or whether it represents the multiple parties of the society in a democratic way; |
Principle 15 | Critical testing challenges the tests as the only tool to measure language knowledge and takes into account the multiple sources of knowledge as the more valid portrait for the interpretation of knowledge. |
Appendix 2: (Interview Questions)
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1.
With respect to two nation-wide high stakes tests of NUEE and SEE which have engaged millions of Iranian students, what is you interpretation of their uses?
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2.
Do you think these two tests have power? If yes, in what sense is it interpreted?
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3.
What groups are involved in the implementation of these tests?
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4.
Which testing groups are more affected?
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5.
Are there any power relationships between different testing parties? Or let’s say, are they equally powered?
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6.
How do you interpret these power relationships?
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7.
What are the harmful consequences and impact of these two tests on testing groups, education, and wider society? Explain please.
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8.
Can the misuses, power, and negative consequences of these two tests be controlled?
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9.
If yes, please suggest some ways.
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Safari, P. Reconsideration of Language Assessment is a MUST for Democratic Testing in the Educational System of Iran. Interchange 47, 267–296 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-016-9276-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-016-9276-8