Teacher-designed, high-stakes English language testing : washback and impact

Abstract

It can be argued that teacher involvement in high-stakes English language testing should feature more prominently in the assessment of students in the twenty-first century. Such involvement is advantageous as the resulting examination is a product of teachers’ experience of the teaching and learning context, subject content, and the student cohort. As Gregory and Clarke point out, educators must be able to engage with an assessment system so as to contribute to policy making and prevent a centralization of power. Harlen affirms that through involvement, teachers “develop ownership of the procedures and criteria and understand the process of assessment”. Such involvement is essential because teacher agency is fundamental to the effective implementation of any assessment initiative. Teacher agency is constituted by how educators “critically shape their responses to problematic situations” it is “something that is achieved through engagement with very specific contextual conditions”. Toohey sees agency as being related to the concept of autonomy and explains that those who champion autonomy are willing to rise above their contextual limitations and promote the power of individual teachers to shape their futures and engage in critical social practice. However, some researchers argue that teacher autonomy is not sufficient and instead advocate an ecological approach to teacher agency. This implies that teacher agency is not meant to be understood solely in terms of an individual teacher’s capacity but mostly by taking into consideration the cultures and structures of schooling that teachers operate within. In fact, Stritikus shows that responses to policy are dependent on both a teacher’s context and on his or her personal history and identity.