Young learners’ voices: Towards a learner-centered approach to understanding language assessment literacy

Abstract

Language assessment literacy (LAL) has recently gained substantial attention among language educators and other stakeholders. However, existing models focus almost exclusively on teachers, test developers, and administrators, and lack students’ perspectives in their conceptualizations. To address this gap, with this exploratory study we aimed to understand young learners’ LAL. The participants were fourth- and sixth-grade students (ages 9–10 and 11–12, respectively, with 10 participants in each age group) in China. After taking English mock tests, the children participated in individual, semi-structured interviews that covered their understanding of the following: (a) assessment purposes and theories (their knowledge about how assessment works); (b) assessment skills (their views of assessment designs, procedures, and content); and (c) assessment principles (their notion of fairness, cheating, and feedback). The data were analyzed qualitatively in line with current LAL models. The results suggest that the children already had substantial assessment literacy in knowledge, skills, and principles. Although their teachers’ assessment practice remains form-focused, children generally want more communicative-based and diagnostic assessment. They also want more cognitively challenging and enjoyable assessment tasks. Our findings provide solid supporting evidence for the importance of considering students’ perspectives, along with the views of other stakeholders, in order to have a more balanced understanding of LAL.

Multiple Stakeholder Interaction to Enhance Preservice Teachers’ Language Assessment Literacy

“…The researchers were able to understand what the ESOL students thought about language assessment and their language assessment experience through this project. Although some researchers have expressed their concerns about test-takers' inability to share their assessment experience (e.g., Malone 2017), our study confirms that as long as a guideline is provided and there is an opportunity to invite ESOL students' thoughts on assessment, they can certainly share their assessment experiences (e.g., Butler et al 2021;Vogt et al 2020).…”

“…His emphasis on teachers' understanding of assessments' roles was further developed in subsequent LAL models. The specific details of LAL vary in different models; however, most of the theoretical LAL models have three major components (Butler et al 2021;Giraldo 2019) : (1) assessment theories, principles, or knowledge; (2) skills to design, use, or interpret the assessment results; and (3) understanding of cultural, ethical, pedagogical, political, and social consequences of language assessment (Davies 2008;Fulcher 2012;Inbar-Lourie 2008;Lee 2019). In another approach, Taylor (2013) suggested eight attributes of LAL, namely "knowledge of theory, technical skills, principles and concepts, language pedagogy, sociocultural values, local practices, personal beliefs/attitudes, and scores and decision-making" (p. 410).…”

Language Assessment Literacy: Insights for Educating English Language Teachers through Assessment

“…Giraldo ( 2018) is my most cited, and it has been used to highlight trends in the field (Bøhn & Tsagari, 2021;Butler, Peng, & Lee, 2021), differentiate LAL from its generic term, assessment literacy (Lan & Fan, 2019;Sultana, 2019), and discuss LAL against teachers' professional development and practice (Buendía & Macías, 2019;Rauf & McCallum, 2020). The citations come from researchers both in Colombia and elsewhere.…”

“…For this task, they will resort to specific arguments (in favor or against) which revolve around either knowledge, skills, or principles in LAL. A student may utilize his/her LAL to argue that a final score on an assignment is fair or unfair (for an example of LAL with young learners, see Butler, Peng, & Lee, 2021). A language tester will need a specific LAL repertoire to develop a reading test for an academic context.…”

“…However, given the impact of assessment in society, other people need to become conversant with language assessment issues (Pill & Harding, 2013;Malone, 2017). For example, in a recent article, Butler et al (2021) investigated the LAL of young learners studying English as a foreign language in China. The results in this study showed that even these stakeholders can have sophisticated views of language assessment: The children, aged nine to twelve, reported that they wanted to have more communicative and cognitively demanding tasks for language learning; they were also aware that the construct in their assessments was limited to linguistic aspects rather than communication itself.…”