Utilizing European Guidelines for Establishing Quality Standards in Language Testing and Assessment (original) (raw)

The purpose of this study is to frame the European guidelines for good practice in language testing and assessment. Herein, four types of international standards are taken into consideration in order to establish quality profiles for language tests. These are labelled as the standards of European Association for Language Testing and Assessment, the Association of Language Testers in Europe, International Language Testing Association and the Association for Educational Assessment-Europe, all of which get inspired by the implementation of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching and Assessment. The codes of practices within the framework of aforementioned standards are taken into thematic analysis in an effort to point the sub-components which are put forward separately. From that point of view, it is reported that the European guidelines embody the core components developed for test construction, test production, administration and logistics, marking and grading, test analysis, communication with stakeholders and item writing. For each component, unifiers as the integrative elements of each are defined and mentioned in detail. In the light of these, some practical recommendations are given for pursuing good practice in language testing and assessment practices, as well.