Conclusion [Teacher involvement in high-stakes language testing]

Abstract

Teacher involvement in High-Stakes language testing is a beneficial enterprise for different stakeholders. Test designers and examination bodies benefit from teachers’ knowledge of the content, context and cohort. Teachers not only have a good degree of knowledge of the language that is being assessed, but they are also immersed in the context that the test operates within and they are highly familiar with the needs and abilities of the candidates being assessed. This form of ecological validity can prove useful in making a test more equitable. For similar reasons, candidates benefit from teacher involvement. They probably have a higher degree of reassurance that their needs are being taken into consideration because someone familiar with the typical profiles of candidates sitting for the language test is involved in it in some form or another. In the case of young candidates, parents and guardians also experience such reassurance. Educational authorities might also consider teacher involvement to be beneficial because the people who probably know the testing context best of all are the ones helping to shape the design or operation of the language test. This obviously applies to High-Stakes tests that are bound to specific national or regional contexts. Lastly, teacher involvement in High- Stakes language testing is a crucial way of empowering teachers and equipping them with the necessary knowledge, skills and beliefs for them to develop their assessment literacy. The various hands-on roles that teachers can adopt in the different stages of test design and operation can all serve an educational purpose. These roles can assist them to both engage with tests in a more critical manner, and engage in assessment practices more effectively.