”At knække lærerkoden” – en elevperspektivisk analyse af adressater ved mundtlig eksamen

In order to graduate, Danish (and Norwegian) upper secondary high-school students are assessed orally in high-stakes tests by two teacher-assessors. Based on a fieldwork following students preparing for the oral exam, the article investigates who the students are presupposing to talk to at the exam. Exam introductions and student interviews are analyzed using Bachtin’s dialogical theory. The paradigmatic case analysis finds that students focus on delivering interpretations that they think the teacher wants to hear, since alternative interpretations are considered a confrontation with the assessors. Potentially, this limits what students allow assessors to gain access to at the exam.

Studiosta steissille – Multimodaaliset kuuntelutehtävät ylioppilastutkinnon pitkien oppimäärien kielikokeissa 2018

Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin ylioppilastutkinnon kielikokeissa esiintyvien kuullunymmärtämistehtävien reiluutta ja tarkoituksenmukaisuutta. Keskityimme multimodaalisiin tehtävätyyppeihin, jotka tulivat mahdolliseksi digitaalisen ylioppilastutkinnon myötä. Aineisto käsitti englannin (n = 37086), ruotsin (n = 1626) ja saksan (n = 491) pitkien oppimäärien kokeisiin vuonna 2018 osallistuneiden kokelaiden osiokohtaiset pistemäärät, joita analysoitiin tilastollisin menetelmin. Lisäksi kyseisten kokeiden koetehtäviä ja niiden kuvauksia analysoitiin teorialähtöisellä sisällönanalyysillä. Multimodaaliset tehtävät edellyttävät kielitaidon lisäksi monilukutaitoa eli monimuotoisten tekstien ja niiden yhdistelmien tulkintaa. Eri kohderyhmien välisiä eroja tutkittaessa havaittiin joitakin eroja englannissa poikien ja ruotsinkielisten ja ruotsissa tyttöjen eduksi. Tasa-arvoisimmiksi osoittautuivat saksan kokeet. Tulokset hyödyttävät koetehtävien laatijoiden lisäksi kielten opetuksen parissa työskenteleviä. From Studio to Station – Multimodal Listening Comprehension Task Types in in Long Syllabus of Languages in Finnish Matriculation Examinations in 2018 Abstract This study addressed fairness and meaningfulness of listening comprehension tasks in the newly digitalized Finnish Matriculation Examination focusing on multimodal task types. The data comprised item scores of test takers in 2018 in long syllabus English (n = 37086), Swedish (n = 1626) and German (n = 491) and related test tasks together with task description sheets. Item scores were analyzed with statistical methods, and the task content with theory-driven content analysis. Multimodal items prerequisite multiple language-related and general competences and strategies and combinations of them. Group wise differences between investigated groups were detected in English in favour of boys and in Swedish in favor of girls, while all differences were smallest in the German tests. The results contribute to item writing and language education in general. Keywords: listening comprehension, language assessment, high-stakes tests, computer-assisted testing

Use of Linguistic Complexity in Writing Among Chinese EFL Learners in High-Stakes Tests: Insights From a Corpus of TOEFL iBT

In studies on second language writing, linguistic complexity exhibited by learners has long been regarded as being indicative of writing proficiency. However, there are relatively scant studies focusing on the diversity and structural elaboration of complexity in L2 production data that are extracted from high-stakes tests [such as Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and International English Language Testing System (IELTS)]. Using a large-scale learner corpus collected from a TOEFL (internet-based test (iBT), this study aims to explore the extent to which the three dimensions of linguistic complexity, syntactic, lexical, and morphological complexity, are associated with human scoring in high-stakes tests. In addition, we also tend to tap into within-genre topic effects on the production of complexity measures by learners. To this end, a total of 1,002 writing samples were collected from a TOEFL11 corpus, and six automated-coding instruments were used to investigate the variations of complexity among Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. The results from the correlation analysis, multiple linear regression, and independent sample t-tests indicated that there was not a linear correlation between the majority of linguistic complexity and human-rated score levels and that proficiency among Chinese EFL learners did not signal a discriminative power in their language production. In the meantime, strong within-proficiency topic effects were found on the majority of measures in the syntactic, lexical, and morphological dimensions.

High-stakes Tests Writing Component: what makes it different from writing in general

What is it that one needs to know in a language to be able to write it? What challenges do students meet when they try to write for a high-stakes test? How should the teacher react to students taking such high-stakes tests as TOEFL or IELTS? Or yet, does knowledge of all these things for both the teacher and the learner contribute significantly to their successful enhancement of knowledge and subsequent better performance? These are only a few of the problems that students who wish to sit for these exams should deal with. Basically, what the researchers would like to find out is what challenges high-stakes tests candidates face. Some scholars (Brown, [1]; Nunan, [2]) have mentioned what makes writing difficult but none have mentioned whether or not there is anything which adds to the difficulty of the high-stakes tests. What other challenges do students meet when taking the TOEFL or IELTS exam? To this end, some 67, IELTS and TOEFL students were asked to fill out a questionnaire to find out what challenges they have when they write in English, in general and what makes high-stakes writing component difficult, in particular. Twenty four of the participants were then interviewed to have an in-depth analysis of their challenges. The findings, among others, suggest that high-stakes tests exert so much pressure on the candidates. Since they believe their future rests in their performance on such tests, they might not even be able to evince their actual knowledge of the language.

State-Anxiety and Academic Burnout Regarding University Access Selective Examinations in Spain During and After the COVID-19 Lockdown

Coping with assessment tests are known to generate anxiety frequently in the students who face them. In academic circumstances with the continued presence of emotional disturbance, high demand, and stress, emotional and physical fatigue, typical of burnout syndrome, and can be detected. Anxiety and burnout are related to each other and even more closely in high-stakes tests. One of these tests is the examination imposed in Spain for access to the university. The objective of this work is to analyze the presence of anxiety and burnout and the relationship between them in students who face these tests, both during the confinement situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic and during the pandemic after the lockdown. For this purpose, we used a sample of 1,021 students with a mean age of 17.89 (SD = 1.22, range 17–27). Of these, 866 (84.8%) were students who were taking the test, while the rest were university students who had passed it recently. Our results show high levels of anxiety and burnout in students who face the evaluation test during the COVID-19 pandemic, sustained over time and especially in comparison with students who had already taken the exam. The association between higher levels of anxiety and higher levels of burnout in the students who take these exams was also verified. These results link the relationship between these two variables more solidly and suggest the need to include address anxiety to reduce burnout levels in these students. The results are discussed with regard to prior evidence and their applications.

Urban Schooling and Social Integration of Ethnic Migrant Students in China

A great migration from rural to urban areas is happening in China and dramatically changing China society. This qualitative study examines the educational experience and social integration of ethnic migrant students in urban China. Contextualized within the huge rural-urban divide, findings indicate challenges in urban schooling and study adaption, including language barriers, achievement gaps, incompatibility of teaching and learning, and high-stakes tests. This study also interprets their negotiation with host and home places and cultures, and cultivation of cultural capital and cross-cultural competence. The unification and competitiveness in urban schooling and the need for culturally responsive teaching are discussed.