questionnaire design

The present research aimed to conceptualize the construct of Teacher Assessment Identity (TAI) by designing and validating a questionnaire in the Iranian EFL context. In so doing, a tentative scale with 96 items was piloted on 340 novice and experienced Iranian EFL teachers using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (EFA, CFA). The results of the analyses led to the removal of 33 items, leaving the questionnaire with 61 items on a five-point Likert scale. Moreover, the results revealed that the construct of TAI has 12 factors including assessment “knowledge”, “beliefs”, “attitudes”, “skills and confidence”, “practices”, “use assurance”, “feedback”, “rubric/criteria”, “consistency and consequence”, “grading/scoring”, “question-types”, and “roles”. Likewise, the convergent validity and reliability of the instrument to measure the construct of concern was statistically confirmed (p>.05). The findings have various implications for EFL teachers, teacher trainers, course designers, and language researchers by raising their awareness of assessment identity and its underlying components.

The measurement of test-taking strategies and practices, mostly studied through qualitative methods, has been an important aspect of language testing and assessment research. The current study examines the test-taking strategies of International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test-takers and reports the process of designing and validating an IELTS test-taking strategy questionnaire. To achieve this aim, a questionnaire with 62 items was developed and piloted on 534 IELTS test-takers. To ensure its validity, the questionnaire results were analyzed through Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses (EFA and CFA). The final 49-item instrument with eight factors, “test-management (TM)” and “test-wiseness (TW)” strategies in each skill, had adequate psychometric properties. The findings revealed positive correlations between TM and TW strategies, representing strong correlations between Reading TM and Listening TM, Reading TW and Listening TW, and Listening TM and Speaking TM. The developed questionnaire can serve as a diagnostic tool to monitor test-takers’ performance and strategies, mainly in high-stakes tests like IELTS.