This study seeks to explore the washback effect of the Malaysian University English Test (MUET), a high-stakes compulsory university entry test in the context of Malaysia. As simple and linear as it commonly appears, washback has been found to be far more complex than simply looking at the impact that a test might or might not have on the stakeholders. Therefore, this study aims to fill in this knowledge gap by systematically re-examining the beliefs on washback by investigating the relationship between the students’ perceptions of the MUET in terms of its importance and difficulty, with their language learning strategies whilst preparing for the test and after sitting the test. Using a mixed methods approach, a student questionnaire and student interview were utilised to elicit data from 30 male and 46 female students. The students were further divided into two groups, specifically those who were preparing for the MUET and those who had already sat the MUET. The findings suggest that preparing for the MUET encouraged the students to utilise a certain language learning strategy more compared to the others, specifically focusing on language skills that had not been formally tested before. Although the students’ perception did not significantly shape the students’ course of action when preparing for the test, it still had an impact on their overall view of the whole test-taking matter. This study is intended to add more insights to the less explored areas of washback, specifically the students’ perceptions and washback over time.

Covid-19 is declared as a global pandemic that has been affecting the economy, society, policy as well as education sector. One of the badly affected countries is Malaysia. Covid-19 had struck the country and affected its education sector. Undergraduates in Malaysia are required to learn their subjects throughout the semesters via e-learning involuntarily. The utilization of e-learning for the teaching and learning at tertiary level came after the announcement from the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia as the initiative to curb the spreading of the virus. However, the usage of e-learning had led to few difficulties and dissatisfactions especially in the learning process among the undergraduates. Thus, this paper attempted to investigate students’ readiness in using e-learning application specifically for English language subjects among university undergraduates. This study also explored students’ perceptions towards the components of e-learning and to see whether this new norm can be administered in the future especially in an emergency state like a pandemic outbreak. This study utilized a questionnaire on students’ readiness in using e-learning to elicit data from 236 respondents. The respondents were both diploma and degree students of one private university in Malaysia, who underwent online classes specifically for English language classes during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period in Malaysia.

This preliminary study explored the level of plagiarism awareness among Malaysian undergraduates when carrying out their summative assessment. In the field of language assessment, summative assessment in the form of graded task is regarded as an effective tool to exercise change as it could highly influence the teaching and learning. However, concern regarding students’ plagiarism behaviour is increasing despite the exposure given to them by their respective instructors. Therefore, this study aimed to fill this gap by investigating if there was any relationship between the students’ perceived plagiarism awareness with their Turnitin similarity index score of their summative assessments. The graded task under investigation was in the form of argumentative essay. Using a quantitative approach, student questionnaire and document analysis were utilised to elicit data from 30 undergraduates. It was found that although the students appeared to be aware of plagiarism, their practices in their summative assessment indicated otherwise.