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Although the use of verbal protocols is growing in oral assessment, research on the use of raters’ verbal protocols is rather rare. Moreover, those few studies did not use a mixed-methods design. Therefore, this study investigated the possible impacts of rater training on novice and experienced raters’ application of a specified set of standards in rating. To meet this objective, the study made use of verbal protocols produced by 20 raters who scored 300 test takers’ oral performances and analyzed the data both qualitatively and quantitatively. The outcomes demonstrated that through applying the training program, the raters were able to concentrate more on linguistic, discourse, and phonological features; therefore, the extent of their agreement increased specifically among the inexperienced raters. The analysis of verbal protocols also revealed that training how to apply a well-defined rating scale can foster its use for raters both validly and reliably. Various groups of raters approach the task of rating in different ways, which cannot be explored through pure statistical analysis. Thus, think-aloud verbal protocols can shed light on the vague sides of the issue and add to the validity of oral language assessment. Moreover, since the results of this study showed that inexperienced raters can produce protocols of higher quality and quantity in the use of macro and micro strategies to evaluate test takers’ performances, there is no evidence based on which decision makers should exclude inexperienced raters solely because of their lack of adequate experience.

Mohammad Reza Oroji , Houman Bijani, Saeid Moharrami Gheydari , Rouhollah Rajabi , Mahsa Sheikhi,
Volume 26, Issue 1 (3-2023)
Abstract

This study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between test anxiety and writing performance among Iranian intermediate EFL students. To achieve this goal, 50 participants of EFL students (male and female) at Iran, Tehran, were selected on the basis of sampling convenience. The instruments used in this research consisted of the proficiency test and TAQ (Test Anxiety) questionnaire. After homogenizing the students via a proficiency test (Cambridge Placement Test, 2010), those students who were selected as upper-intermediate ones were allowed to take part in this research. Their age range was between 20 and 40. Having collected the results, the researchers recorded the scores in computer files for statistical analysis using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25.00. In order to measure the relationship between the variables (test anxiety & written performance) Pearson Correlation tests were run. The results illustrated that there were significant relationships between writing performance and text anxiety and all its sub-scales of worry and emotionality. In addition, it was proved that there was not any significant difference between male and female in respect to writing performance. It must be reiterated that a Pearson Correlation test was also run to measure the Inter-Rater Reliability. The results of this study will provide insights to help EFL learners reduce their test anxiety and increase the level of their confidence.

Wander Lowie, Houman Bijani, Mohammad Reza Oroji, Zeinab Khalafi, Pouya Abbasi,
Volume 26, Issue 2 (9-2023)
Abstract

Performance testing including the use of rating scales has become highly widespread in the evaluation of second/foreign oral assessment. However, few studies have used a pre-, post-training design investigating the impact of a training program on the reduction of raters’ biases to the rating scale categories resulting in increase in their consistency measures. Besides, no study has used MFRM including the facets of test takers’ ability, raters’ severity, task difficulty, group expertise, scale category, and test version all in a single study. 20 EFL teachers rated the oral performances produced by 200 test takers before and after a training program using an analytic rating scale including fluency, grammar, vocabulary, intelligibility, cohesion and comprehension categories. The outcome of the study indicated that MFRM can be used to investigate raters’ scoring behavior and can result in enhancement in rater training and validating the functionality of the rating scale descriptors. Training can also result in higher levels of interrater consistency and reduced levels of severity/leniency; however, it cannot turn raters into duplicates of one another, but can make them more self-consistent. Training helped raters use the descriptors of the rating scale more efficiently of its various band descriptors resulting in reduced halo effect. Finally, the raters improved consistency and reduced rater-scale category biases after the training program. The remaining differences regarding bias measures could probably be attributed to the result of different ways of interpreting the scoring rubrics which is due to raters’ confusion in the accurate application of the scale.


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Iranian Journal of Applied Linguistics
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