Preparing for admissions tests in English

Test preparation for admissions to education programmes has always been a contentious issue (Anastasi, 1981; Crocker, 2003; Messick, 1982; Powers, 2012). For Crocker (2006), ‘No activity in educational assessment raises more instructional, ethical, and validity issues than preparation for large-scale, high-stakes tests.’ (p. 115). Debate has often centred around the effectiveness of preparation and how it affects the validity of test score interpretations; equity and fairness of access to opportunity; and impacts on learning and teaching (Yu et al., 2017). A focus has often been preparation for tests originally designed for domestic students, for example, SATs (e.g., Alderman & Powers, 1980; Appelrouth et al., 2017; Montgomery & Lilly, 2012; Powers, 1993; Powers & Rock, 1999; Sesnowitz et al., 1982) and state-wide tests (e.g., Firestone et al., 2004; Jäger et al., 2012), but the increasing internationalisation of higher education has added a new dimension. To enrol in higher education programmes which use English as the medium of instruction, increasing numbers of international students whose first language is not English are now taking English language tests, or academic specialist tests administered in English, or both. The papers in this special issue concern how students prepare for these tests and the roles in this process of the tests themselves and of the organisations that provide them.