Diferenciación de las cargas de responsabilidad

The Dictionary of Language Testing (Davies et al 1999) defines affective reaction as the emotional reaction or engagement o f a test-taker to a test. Affective reactions are recognised as influencing the quality o f the test performance and as such will contribute to measurement error (Davies et al 1999, p.4). This definition presents a collective view of language testing: affect is a source of error and should therefore be avoided, in spite of being part of Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) model of language use. The dictionary (Davies et al 1999) refers to Porter (1991) as a further source of information on affective factors in language testing.

3.3.2.1 Predictable versus unpredictable factors

Porter (1991) defines affective factors as emotions and attitudes that affect our behaviour. He distinguishes between the effects of predictable and unpredictable factors: predictable affective factors include age, status, personality type, acquaintance-relationship and the gender o f the test-takers. (...) Unpredictable factors include moods that weaken the concentration or associations that fo r personal reasons affect the test-takers’ performance (Porter (1991) p.33). Although this definition explains sources of possible error, it does not have much in common with the present understanding of affect. For example, it is not clear why it should include

gender or age.

However, one has to take into account that this was written in 1991, when affect was not part of Bachman’s language use model (see Bachman 1990), but was treated as a test-taker characteristic and a source of error. To control measurement error, test developers are cautioned against using tasks that could involve affective response: I f

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we ask the test-takers to deal with an emotionally charged topic, such as abortion, gun control or national sovereignty, their affective responses to this topic may limit their ability to utilize the full range o f language knowledge and meta-cognitive strategies available to them (Bachman and Palmer 1996, p.66). The question remains, however, what to do with the test situation, which is for many people an emotionally charged experience.

Porter (1991) acknowledges the problem that affect causes for language testers saying that there would not be a lot that we could do about it as we cannot strip the texts o f all the emotions because emotional content is the central feature o f natural language use. At the same time we have to admit that it is a potential source o f unreliability (Porter 1991, p.34).

This seems to be a problem without a solution only if we treat affect as a unitary concept. If, however, we apply the different functions of affect to this problem we can see that affect has different roles to play in language use. Some functions of affect can interfere with the ability to access language knowledge and therefore can cause error o f measurement (especially in interaction with test facets) while others are necessary for us to understand language and react in an appropriate way.

3.3.2.2 Systematic versus unsystematic factors

Bachman (1990) includes test-taker characteristics in his discussion of the sources of error. He differentiates between three different groups of factors other than language ability that affect performance on language tests:

1. test method facets (uniform from one test administration to the next)

2. attributes of the test-taker that are not considered part of the language abilities we want to measure, such as cognitive style and knowledge of particular content areas, sex, race and ethnic background

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3. unsystematic random factors (test-takers’ mental alertness or emotional state, changes in the test environment, idiosyncratic differences in the way different test-administrators carry out the test instructions).

Bachman (1990) says that there is sufficient evidence about the influence of personal characteristics on language test scores to distinguish them as a separate factor. In addition they can also interact with the test-facets to constitute additional sources of variation. He calls the first two factors systematic and the third unsystematic. Thus according to his classification the affective factors’ impact on test performance can be systematic (as a part of strategic competence) and unsystematic (when the test-taker experiences some temporary personal problems or is affected by test-tasks in a way that differs from that of the other test-takers). As a result I do not see in this model any differentiation between test anxiety and any other functions of affective or volitional aspects of language use. One can argue that Bachman’s (1990) model of language use does not contain affective schemata, and this is true. But role of the affective schemata in language use in the 1996 model has not been supported by a re- evaluation of their impact on test-score.

Given the nature of affect as a cluster of variables that, according to Oxford (1990), consists of anxiety, motivation and beliefs about oneself, it will be a systematic factor that affects the test-takers’ performance, as it will affect performance in every circumstance. Random factors and unsystematic error are caused by the test-takers’ inability to react in a regular way because of personal reasons (for example, an illness) or because of ambiguity in the test rubric, test input or setting. Bachman and Palmer (1996) do not examine these factors beyond stating: The test-takers ’ assessment o f the characteristics o f the task will determine their affective response to that task and their flexibility in using his (I guess the authors meant also ‘ her’) language ability to complete it. We would thus expect a positive affective response to the test task to make

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the test task relatively more interactive, and a negative affective response to have the opposite effect (Bachman and Palmer 1996 p. 145).

Thus according to Bachman and Palmer the crucial difference would lie in the interactiveness of the test. One might oppose here that as proposed by Shohamy (1982), another important feature for the test-takers is that the test-taker recognise the test format (‘novelty check’ Scherer 2000). So if the test-taker is used to traditional tasks while learning and has suddenly to fulfil an interactive task, it will be the interactiveness of the test that will cause negative reactions. (This was not the case in Latvia’s Year 12 exam, though.)

I think that if we continue to treat anxiety and other affective variables as individual characteristics that cause error in our measurement of language performance and therefore strip our tests of any topic that might cause affective reaction in a population o f thousands of test-takers, we will be sacrificing language test validity to increase reliability of measurement. I believe that by accepting affect, like meta-cognition, as a part of language competence we have to accept responsibility for the possibility that some topics will be ‘emotionally charged’ for some test-takers. Consequently we have to develop methods to register test-takers’ reactions to our tasks and decide how far our test should go in measuring test-takers’ ability to express their emotions and perceive and interpret emotions of others as expressed in a foreign language. This attitude to emotions or affect would to my mind increase foreign language test validity and have a positive washback on language teaching.