1st Edition

Evaluating Language Assessments

By Antony John Kunnan Copyright 2018
294 Pages
by Routledge

294 Pages
by Routledge

294 Pages
by Routledge

Evaluating Language Assessments  offers a comprehensive overview of the theoretical bases and research methodologies for the evaluation of language assessments and demonstrates the importance of a fuller understanding of this widely used evaluative tool. The volume explores language assessment evaluation in its wider political, economic, social, legal, and ethical contexts while also... Read more

Chapter 1 Language assessments: The need for evaluation

Chapter 2 Past frameworks and evaluations

Chapter 3 Ethics-based approach to assessment evaluation

Chapter 4 Building the Fairness and Justice Argument

Chapter 5 Opportunity-to-Learn

Chapter 6 Meaningfulness

Chapter 7 Absence of Bias

Chapter 8 Washback and Consequences

Chapter 9 Advancing fairness and justice

Chapter 10 Applications and implications

Biography

Antony John Kunnan is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of English at the University of Macau. He is a specialist on language assessment and his research has focused on fairness and justice, statistical analysis, and ethics and public policy. He was the founding editor of Language Assessment Quarterly and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Asia TEFL.

"Kunnan’s thoughtfully-grounded principles and wide-ranging illustrative examples will quickly become—and long endure as—the landmark reference for all discussions of fairness and justice in language testing. The book establishes an innovative, rigorous, and thorough conceptual framework to evaluate the actual uses of language assessments in society."
Alister Cumming, University of Toronto, Canada, and Beijing Foreign Studies University, China

"Fairness and justice, the two important qualities of any assessment and assessment practice, seem to be suspect in most if not all assessments. This volume shows how we can apply ethical thinking to address these issues in actual practice. Antony Kunnan provides theory, practice and research to put forward his compelling arguments that make the book a superb resource for everyone concerned with assessment."
Rama Mathew, Delhi University, India

"This concise volume makes a timely contribution to the language assessment literature by building on Kunnan’s concerns for fairness and justice. In a systematic way, he takes the reader through a process of justification that can lead to clearer thinking about the use of assessments and to fairer outcomes."
Nick Saville, University of Cambridge, UK