EFL Teachers’ Assessment Literacy: A Contextualized Measure of Assessment Theories and Skills

Abstract

Teachers from different sectors of education have always been involved in the process of assessing learners’ academic performance. In the language teaching discipline, this has highlighted the significance of language assessment literacy (LAL), reflecting its significance to language teachers across various settings. In the wake of recent theoretical bourgeoning, development of a contextualized framework that proves helpful in conceptualization and measurement of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ LAL is required. To this aim, the present study gained insights from Fulcher’s (2012) LAL framework into validation and examination of a LAL scale that could be considered for its applicability and usefulness as a LAL measure and help EFL teachers self-evaluate their LAL levels (in particular, their LAL theoretical and practical components). For this purpose, a mixed-methods approach was used to synthesize interview data from six national and international experts with questionnaire data obtained from Iranian EFL teachers (N=173) to gauge their assessment theories and skills and bear evidence in support of the reliability, validity and utilization of the measure put forth. The study rounds out with the significance of teachers’ LAL in teachers’ pedagogy, with finally presenting theoretical and practical implications of the obtained evidence for educational research and practices.