Student affective reactions to oral language tests

Abstract

Many factors influence student reactions to tests, including format, length, time constraints, testing environment, familiarity with test format, perceptions of test validity, and student anxiety. The present study assessed the affective reactions of native Brazilian students to different oral EFL test formats (group and pair) in an achievement testing situation. Each student participated in both the group and the pair test formats and completed an affect questionnaire after each test. A principal factor analysis of student responses to the questionnaire revealed two major factors. The first appeared to involve cognitive judgements about the validity of the test and how well students liked the test. The other factor seemed to be emotive, and involved student reports of the anxiety they felt both before and after the test. Similarly, a qualitative analysis of student responses to open-ended items on the questionnaire found that students were mostly concerned about their emotional state, test content, and time constraints in the testing situation, while comments about test administrators accounted for only a small percentage of the total responses. A multivariate analysis of variance based on the results of the factor analysis showed no significant difference among student reactions to the different test formats.