Consequences of test use: a case study of employers’ voice on the social impact of English certification exit requirements in Taiwan

Abstract

Background: This study investigates the social impact of a policy requiring university graduates to pass an English proficiency test by examining the consequences of test use in the workplace in Taiwan.Methods: Interviews were conducted with 19 business people in charge of recruiting potential employees in 17 industries across Taiwan. All these 19 employers hired the gratudes from a technological university in southern Taiwan. These interviews sought to discover the importance of English certification as an element of job hunting,the opinions of businesses regarding various certification tests, and their attitudes towards the exit requirement. Results and conclusions:Findings indicate that although these employers were favorably disposed towards this policy, only 13 % of them required English certificates as a hiring criterion. Another finding was that 53 % of employers regarded the certificates as evidence that applicants who possessed them were diligent and likely to be hard-working employees. These informants interpreted tests differently from testers, focusing on cultural notions of what personal qualities tests highlight rather than on language ability. Due to this and other factors, the impact of the test remained weak.

The Case of Taiwan: Perceptions of College Students About the Use of the TOEIC® Tests as a Condition of Graduation

“…The primary uses of the TOEIC tests are to allow test takers to verify their current level of English proficiency, qualify for a new position or promotion in a company, enhance their professional credentials, monitor their progress in English, set their own learning goals, and involve their employer in advancing their English ability. In the past decade, the TOEIC has gained increasingly wide recognition by test takers and score users in Taiwan, and the test scores are now being used extensively for recruitment and promotion by both domestic and multinational corporations and organizations (Pan & Roever, ).…”

“…Some top‐tier institutions have set a higher bar; others have set different criteria for different majors (Shih, ). For example, English and business majors are usually required to obtain a higher passing score than their non‐English or nonbusiness major counterparts (Pan & Roever, ).…”

Review of washback research literature within Kane's argument-based validation framework

“…A large number of washback studies in language testing that were published in the last decade (32 out of 87) fall into this area of research. Among them are major empirical studies published in the Studies in Language Testing (SiLT) series book volumes: (Cheng 2005; Wall 2005); 1 in research reports: (Wall & Horák 2006, 2008); and in doctoral dissertations (e.g., Pan 2010, Yu 2010, Schissel 2012), as well as Cheng, Watanabe & Curtis (2004) – the first systematic attempt to capture the essence of the washback phenomenon through its collection of washback studies from around the world. With respect to theory, some researchers turned to classroom teaching and learning theories to guide their studies (e.g., Cheng 2005), others to curriculum innovation theories (e.g., Wall 2005), and increasingly, researchers have turned to a validity framework to guide their studies (Saif 2006; Cheng, Klinger & Zheng 2007; Abdul Kadir 2008; Wang 2010; Xie 2010).…”

“…Each of these studies investigates the influence of testing on various aspects of teaching and, increasingly, on various aspects of learning. These explorations have also expanded our understanding of test impact on other stakeholders such as parents (Shih 2006; Cheng, Andrews & Yu 2010), employers (Pan 2010), and publishers (Hawkey 2006; Mishan 2010).…”

“…This is due, among other reasons, to the existence of large-scale high-stakes testing and the drive to introduce ‘innovative’ teaching pedagogy to existing teaching practices, which tend to be teacher-centred and lack quality teachers of English, primarily in the Asian context. These studies were conducted in different contexts around the world, e.g., mainland China (Zhao 2005), Hong Kong (Lumley & Stoneman 2000; Stoneman 2006; Yu 2010), Korea (O 2001), Malaysia (Abdul Kadir 2008; Tan 2009), Taiwan (Pan 2010; Shih 2006, 2010), Vietnam (Nguyen 1997), Greece (Tsagari 2007), and Costa Rica (Quesada 2001).…”