Establishing a language assessment literacy framework for an educational organisation
- Mina Patel(Author),
- Nahal Khabbazbashi(Second supervisor),
- Fumiyo Nakatsuhara(Supervisor)
Student Thesis:
Student thesis
Doctoral thesis
About the thesis
The aim of this research was to explore the perceptions of and needs for language assessment literacy (LAL) in the English and Exams departments of the British Council. The British Council is heavily invested in language testing and assessment (LTA) programmes and activities and provides a fertile research site for this study. The population of focus are employees who work with LTA but have no formal background or training in the area. In the current research, they are referred to as Professionals in Different Disciplines (PiDDs). Examples of the different disciplines are business development, marketing and sales. The work of PiDDs is important and it carries consequences. They promote and sell tests to individuals and advise on tests for institutions and organisations. If tests are misrepresented or misused there could be negative impact for individuals, institutions and the British Council.
The rationale for this study is organisational, the British Council engages in numerous LTA activities and yet there is no systemic LAL for employees who work with LTA, academic; PiDDs have been under-represented in LAL studies to date; and personal, at the start of this study, I was and to an extent still consider myself to be a PiDD.
The methodology chosen for this investigation was Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM). The study is qualitative using semi-structured interviews, focus groups, documents and member-checking as data collection methods. One of the aims of this exploration was to give voice to PiDDs, to listen to their experiences and opinions about LAL and GTM provides a forum for this. GTM does not seek to verify existing frameworks, instead a theory is generated from the data using inductive, abductive and abstractive analytic methods. I started the study with two assumptions, firstly that LAL was needed in English and Exams and secondly that there was no organisational direction for LAL. I included member checking for the purposes of analytic checks and reviews and reflexivity to ensure my concerns did not dominate above the participants’ concerns. Other than that, I have let the data speak for itself.
The findings revealed that though perceptions and understandings of LAL in the organisation were varied, the need for it was recognised. However, LAL was among a longer list of learning and development needs and concerns for the population. From the data eight categories were conceptualised to generate a theory for the British Council. LAL was one of these categories. The core category for this grounded theory is ‘Creating the conditions to grow the business’. The findings of the research led to the development of a multidimensional framework of LAL in the form of a Product and Services Knowledge Framework for employees in an organisation such as the British Council.
The rationale for this study is organisational, the British Council engages in numerous LTA activities and yet there is no systemic LAL for employees who work with LTA, academic; PiDDs have been under-represented in LAL studies to date; and personal, at the start of this study, I was and to an extent still consider myself to be a PiDD.
The methodology chosen for this investigation was Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM). The study is qualitative using semi-structured interviews, focus groups, documents and member-checking as data collection methods. One of the aims of this exploration was to give voice to PiDDs, to listen to their experiences and opinions about LAL and GTM provides a forum for this. GTM does not seek to verify existing frameworks, instead a theory is generated from the data using inductive, abductive and abstractive analytic methods. I started the study with two assumptions, firstly that LAL was needed in English and Exams and secondly that there was no organisational direction for LAL. I included member checking for the purposes of analytic checks and reviews and reflexivity to ensure my concerns did not dominate above the participants’ concerns. Other than that, I have let the data speak for itself.
The findings revealed that though perceptions and understandings of LAL in the organisation were varied, the need for it was recognised. However, LAL was among a longer list of learning and development needs and concerns for the population. From the data eight categories were conceptualised to generate a theory for the British Council. LAL was one of these categories. The core category for this grounded theory is ‘Creating the conditions to grow the business’. The findings of the research led to the development of a multidimensional framework of LAL in the form of a Product and Services Knowledge Framework for employees in an organisation such as the British Council.