THE MORALITY OF THE TEST OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (TOEFL) 2

This, combined with the strict and ritualistic way in which standardized tests are conducted, gives the knowledge they enshrine a solemn, almost sacred significance. The political, “interested” nature of knowledge featured in chapter 3 is a powerful component here too. I argue that there is deep moral meaning in such an approach to knowledge: By reducing learners to recipients of knowledge rather than creators of it, one is also reducing their capacity for moral agency. There is also a question of honesty here. Because of the veil of objectivity behind which they hide, standardized tests ride roughshod over the unavoidable difficulties of matching score with actual ability. The final score is presented (and in the overwhelming majority of cases is also treated) as an objective measure: The uncertainties and ambiguities that attend test development, and the myriad psychological factors that affect a candidate’s performance on a given day, are invisible. Furthermore, because of the physical and administrative distance between the testers and those tested, appeals are difficult, if not impossible. A teacher might possibly be inclined to be lenient on a student whose grandfather died a few days before the exam, or to give a student who has difficulty writing an extra minute or two at the end of a test. A standardized test can offer neither of these possibilities or anything like them. What is missing here is relation: The human relation between tester and testee, which exists when teachers prepare tests, and which informed the whole of the previous section, is entirely absent in the standardized test. By this account, the moral contours of the test are quite different. The educational process is suddenly deprived of its deepest and most meaningful component. This feature is underlined even more in the current shift to computerized testing in the TOEFL and many other common tests. The impersonal nature of such tests, and the impossibility of our understanding the human dimension of the test-taking experience of any specific individual, makes it very difficult for the consumers of test score information to know how to interpret them. As language professionals, we know the complexities I have been discussing here; as a result, reading the scores is very much a matter of interpretation rather than a simple acknowledgment of a score. Just 2 days ago I was reviewing some late admissions for our own master’s and doctoral programs.