Voices from stakeholders: What makes an academic English test ‘international’?

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a growing number of speakers of all varieties of English in English-medium higher education. It has also become increasingly common for an academic English test to be used and accepted in multiple countries for admissions purposes. Both trends have implications for the definition of the target language use domain for tests of English for academic purposes, and have brought challenges to traditional test development practices based on one of the Standard varieties of English. In this study we investigated what properties a global academic English test should include from the perspectives of multiple stakeholder groups, including test takers, English teachers, score users, and language testing professionals. Survey responses from the participants indicated both willingness to embrace diversity and reservations about accommodating differences. Further analysis by stakeholder indicated that perceptions varied to a certain extent across stakeholder groups. The results also indicated that various factors were recognized as contributing to an academic test's global perception. The findings contribute to our understanding of assessing academic English in the global context. The results can also inform the alignment of testing practices with the reality of English language use globally, which suggests implications for test development and delivery.