Assessment in English for Academic Purposes: Putting Current Validity in Its Place

Testing & assessment in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) contexts has traditionally been carried out on the basis of a needs analysis of learners or a content analysis of courses. This is not surprising, given the dominance of needs analysis models in EAP, & a focus in test design that va...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied linguistics 1999-06, Vol.20 (2), p.221-236
Main Author: Fulcher, Glenn
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Testing & assessment in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) contexts has traditionally been carried out on the basis of a needs analysis of learners or a content analysis of courses. This is not surprising, given the dominance of needs analysis models in EAP, & a focus in test design that values adequacy of sampling as a major criterion in assessing the validity of an assessment procedure. This article reassesses this approach to the development & validation of EAP tests on the basis of the theoretical model of S. Messick (1989) & recent research into content specificity, arguing that using content validity as a major criterion in test design & evaluation has been mistaken. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 36 References. Adapted from the source document
ISSN:0142-6001