http://ltj.sagepub.com/Language Testing

http://ltj.sagepub.com/content/3/2/240The online version of this article can be found at:

 DOI: 10.1177/026553228600300213

1986 3: 240Language TestingDavid Nevo Tel Aviv University

  

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- Dec 1, 1986Version of Record >>

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the United States, special educational programmes whose aim was toimprove the functioning of ethnolinguistic minorities in standardEnglish. Such programmes demanded language tests. Thirdly,population movements, usually from less developed to more

developed countries, increased the linguistic diversity of schoolpopulations in the latter, which in turn created a demand for tests toassess the linguistic proficiency of children in the host language.Fourthly, the growth of world trade, of which English-speaking coun-tries formed the largest share, promoted a demand for English lan-guage classes throughout the world and a corresponding need for lan-guage tests. Fifthly, the mass literacy campaigns and the efforts toexpand educational enrolments which took place after the SecondWorld War in many of the newly independent multilingual statescreated a demand for language tests. Finally, researchers in psy-chology, sociology, pedagogy, and the language sciences needed testsin order to solve substantive problems in those fields, which hadexpanded as a result of investment in social science research.Thus LT emerged as a subdiscipline chiefly as the result of demand

for language tests in the solution of practical problems and theoreticalissues. Often the same people were concerned with both theoreticalissues and their practical applications. Methodological innovationin LT, then, has been a byproduct largely of other concerns. WhileLT has all the appearance of a subfield - that is to say, its own orga-nizations, journals, conferences, programmes and courses - few

developers of language tests are primarily interested in language testsfor their own sake. Test developers are interested in them because theyhelp to solve practical problems and help to address theoretical issues.Thus the future of LT in the next 25 years is very much the future of

the demand for language tests - the practical problems and thetheoretical issues which will appear over the next decades. Now itseems to me we can best encourage the development of LT by facilitat-ing interaction among researchers who need language tests to solvetheir problems and also between them and other consumers of lan-guage tests. The most useful conferences on LT in the next 25 yearswill address not testing issues but rather issues which require languagetests. Now as to what these issues will be, I leave to the predictions ofmy colleagues on this panel.

David NevoTel Aviv University

Futurology is a very complicated area, especially with regard to lan-guage testing. However, this is the land of the prophets. In this land

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fantasies may sometimes be considered as viable forecasts of thefuture, and present hopes as future directions. Here are some of myhopes-fantasies-directions for the future of language testing.

First, we need to develop a multipurpose-multimethod approach tolanguage testing. John Carroll’s notion that time is a crucial factor inthe learning process (Carroll, 1963) led a group of scholars at theUniversity of Chicago to develop the idea of mastery learning. Thisconcept, now well accepted by many educators, suggests that almosteveryone can learn almost everything, provided with enough time andwith appropriate teaching methods. A similar approach should bedeveloped for language testing. Such an approach would suggest thateveryone’s language skills can be appropriately tested for various pur-poses provided that an appropriate testing method is being used. Sucha multipurpose, multimethod testing approach could utilize com-puters and other technologies to develop the full potential of adaptivetesting. This would suggest not only a different number of items at dif-ferent difficulty levels for various individuals, but also different test-ing methods for different individuals for various testing purposes.

Secondly, we need a better understanding of the educational andsocial implications of language testing. The concept of backwash (orwashback) effect has been mentioned many times during this sym-posium. We tend to deal with this issue the same way we deal with theweather: everybody talks about it, but hardly anybody does anythingabout it. From the educational point of view, the backwash effect is avery important aspect of testing. In order fully to understand itssignificance, we need to act at least in two directions. First, the con-cept itself has to be clarified by extending the list of desirable char-acteristics of tests beyond reliability and validity to include its educa-tional and social significance. Elsewhere (Nevo and Shohamy, 1986)we have suggested four groups of such characteristics that might beuseful: accuracy, utility, feasibility and fairness of tests. Secondly,more empirical studies on the effect of testing should be conducted toextend our knowledge and understanding of the backwash effect invarious educational and social settings. In recent years, a few studies(e.g. Wesdorp, 1982) but certainly not enough, have been conductedon the washback effect of language testing. More such studies shouldbe encouraged.

Finally, we need to make a much clearer distinction betweenresearch and development in the area of language testing. This is aconceptual distinction rather than an administrative or political one.For administrative or political purposes, ambiguity rather than clearseparation of these two concepts might be desirable to ensure appro-priate support. Conceptually, however, we should avoid the con-fusion between research activities and development activities in testing

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which differ in purpose, in method and in the practical constraints puton them. While interaction between research in language testing andthe development of language tests is to be encouraged, developmentitself should be geared to serve practical assessment purposes in educa-tion and other areas, and research should be directed to study the pro-cess of testing and its many crucial aspects. Some of the presentationsin this symposium have proposed very impressive testing developmentendeavours, yet their contribution to our understanding of the testingprocess has been minimal.

References

Carroll, J.B. 1963: A model of school learning. Teachers College Record 64.Nevo, D. and Shohamy, E. 1986: Evaluation standards for the assessment of

alternative testing methods: an application. Studies in EducationalEvaluation 12.

Wesdorp, H. 1982: Backwash effects of multiple choice language tests: mythor reality? Paper presented at the Fifth International Language TestingSymposium, Arnhem, The Netherlands.

Douglas K. StevensonUniversity of Essen

The past 25 years: to my way of thinking, the single greatest develop-ment in the past 25 years has been the degree to which we have becomeaware of the complexity of language behaviour. Of course, we have anincrease in our knowledge of, and in the number of models (abstrac-tions of abstractions) for behaviour in real-life contexts. Yet I think itis the very awareness of how complex it is that is most significant.During this same period, our awareness of the complexity of measure-ment, that testing part of language testing, has also increased. Forexample, we now must consider method effect, the ’how’ of testing,for we know that it does affect, more or less, what we would measure.Only a very few years ago, this was not a given, and it makes thingsjust that more complex. Put together, what we have today in languagetesting is an increased and definite awareness of the complexity of lan-guage, of the complexity of testing, of the complexity of languagetesting.

This has led us to an insecurity, a feeling that has come out againand again during this symposium. On the other hand, this has also ledto a sensitivity to the effects of our necessarily inaccurate measure-ments. Lyle Bachman made the same point several years ago: beforewe even begin to test, we know that we are going to be inaccurate

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