SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH SYNTHESIS ON RATING IN ESP SPEAKING ASSESSMENTS

Abstract

Jacoby and McNamara (1998) insist that domain specialists (e.g., doctors) and language specialists (e.g., teachers) differ in their approaches to evaluating profession-specific communication tasks. However, due to the scarcity of studies examining speaking assessments for occupational purposes, the differences between the two rater groups have not yet been clearly revealed. In response to this gap in the literature, this systematic research synthesis study examines how the workplace speaking skill has been evaluated, focusing on rater groups and rating scales. The major findings are as follows. First, research on ESP speaking assessments tends to include more than one rater group such as domain specialists and language specialists. Second, while domain specialists and language specialists generally demonstrate high intergroup correlations, the rater group notably differs in terms of field-specific criteria. Third, compared with linguistic scales, field-specific criteria have not been developed. Based on these results, directions for future research are discussed.