Abstract
As part of their prerequisite for any hallmark form of accountability, language tests are designed and administered to spur learning outcomes that would serve the educational needs of any nation. This article investigated language assessment in Tunisia by focusing on the testing of listening comprehension. SPSS and FACETS quantitative analyses of test scores of an achievement examination among 646 test-takers suggested that students had a very low language ability and that the nine raters who graded this exam were harshly and subjectively biased toward the nature of the exam tasks, thus showing a fuzzy idea of the construct of listening comprehension. This was conducive to irrelevant assessment results which, in fact, put into questions the testability of the exam items. Implications of the results were considered and recommendations to further investigate assessment in this context were also discussed.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people for their unconditional help and cooperation at the time of data collection: Aicha Graja, Faten Belhaj, Faten Houioui, Hajer Mami, Hedia Oueslati, Rim Drira, Rim Zaoui, Safia Sahli, and Selma Ben Mrad. I, however, remain responsible for the contents of this work.
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Hidri, S. (2019). State-of-the-Art of Assessment in Tunisia: The Case of Testing Listening Comprehension. In: Hidri, S. (eds) English Language Teaching Research in the Middle East and North Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98533-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98533-6_2
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