Assessing Assessment Literacy: Insights From a High-Stakes Test

This study constitutes an attempt to see what Language assessment literacy (LAL) isfor three groups of stakeholders, namely LAL test developers, LAL instructors, andLAL test-takers. The perceptions of the former group were derived from the contentanalysis of the latest version of the LAL test, and those of the latter 2 groups wereassessed through a survey designed by the researcher. Participants were 54 M.A.TEFL students sampled conveniently. Descriptive statistical analysis of the datarevealed that for test designers LAL is mainly a matter of knowledge and theorywith little importance accorded to skills and even less so to principles. Forinstructors and test-takers, LAL was perceived to be mainly a matter of skills.Moreover, test-takers perceived of LAL as the most challenging module of the testbecause of its dealing with statistics, its theoretical nature, and test-takers' lack ofhands-on experience with language tests.