Assessment and Autonomy in Language Learning

C. Everhard, L. Murphy, C. Everhard, L. Murphy

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137414380
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages

This book examines this contested relationship between assessment and autonomy from a number of perspectives in a variety of Higher Education language-learning contexts in Europe and the Far East. The contributors to the book describe research into assessment both for and as autonomy, as well as approaches to the assessment of autonomy itself.

1

The Assessment-Autonomy Relationship

Carol J. Everhard

The relationship between assessment and learning, in general, and between assessment and language education, in particular, has been explored in some depth during the past few decades. It is therefore striking that the relationship between assessment and autonomy in language learning, which so clearly warrants rigorous investigation regarding the influences of the one on the other and the resultant implications and ramifications, remains relatively neglected. Considering the apparent growth of interest in the promotion of autonomy in language learning and in discovering its affordances, this neglect is surprising.

Despite the fact that numerous researchers have outlined the advantages to be derived from learners taking more responsibility for their learning and from having greater participation in the assessment process, the message transmitted concerning how assessment processes link with promoting greater autonomy in language learning seems to have failed to come across with sufficient force to effect any really dramatic changes within language learning communities. Language learners still depend very much on those whom they consider better qualified others (teachers or examiners) to do their assessment for them. This is one of the reasons why confusion still prevails concerning the assessment-autonomy relationship.

One of the aims of this chapter, therefore, will be to attempt to clear some of the undergrowth and debris that has accumulated within the ‘secret garden’ of assessment (Weeden, Winter & Broadfoot, 2002, p. 150) and what could be termed the equally ‘secret garden’ of autonomy, blurring our understanding and consciousness of how assessment and autonomy interconnect with each other and with language learning in general.

The chapter begins by looking at some of the ways in which autonomy has been described and settles on a working definition to meet the needs of the chapter, but which is of relevance to the book as a whole. The concept of autonomy will then be further scrutinized through the use of a series of continua, and by thinking of autonomy in terms of degrees and in relation to its antonym, heteronomy, a means of (re-)conceptualizing autonomy is suggested. In turn, assessment will be examined and defined in a gradated format, along a continuum. Like autonomy, assessment is also (re-)considered as a matter of degree and if (re-)conceptualized in terms of a cline or continuum, can be looked at in a new light, both in relation to teaching and learning and in relation to autonomy. The implications that an autonomy-oriented approach to assessment has for teaching and learning will be outlined. Questions related to the important and controversial issue of the measurement or assessment of autonomy and some of the problems this entails, will then be raised. Finally, reflection will be considered in terms of being the glue or cohesive factor which links assessment with autonomy, marrying the two together. This chapter and its suggestions for (re-)conceptualizing both autonomy and assessment, therefore, forms the backdrop for subsequent chapters.

Understanding and defining autonomy

There is no doubt that autonomy is a complex matter and its promotion or implementation even more so. Like assessment, the field of autonomy in language learning has become something of a ‘secret garden’ in the sense that some language teachers apparently remain oblivious to its existence, some are aware of its existence but are unable to see its relevance to their particular teaching situation, some are intrigued by its possibilities, but despite their best efforts are unable to find either the point of entrance or the key to the ‘garden’. Then, there are others who believe they have discovered a point of entry to the promotion of autonomy, but find themselves having to contend with a myriad of problems. Such problems encountered in fostering autonomy might arise from the learners themselves and their preconceptions, from colleagues with different perceptions of their role as teachers, from management, from parents or other stakeholders, or from the curriculum and the system of assessment imposed. Another considerable problem is that even in cases where claims can be made that autonomy has been put into practice, teachers, researchers and language advisors may have encountered difficulties in finding ways to ‘justify its promotion through tangible scales of measurement’ (Everhard, 2006, p. 11), a matter which will be touched upon later in this chapter and, in turn, by Murase (Chapter 2), Tassinari (Chapter 3) and Cooker (Chapter 4).

For every success story we see described concerning autonomy, there may be many more autonomy stories that are simply not reported. In some cases, teachers may have concluded that their attempts at promoting autonomy were lacking in success, possibly because things turned out differently from how the teacher anticipated or moved too slowly for the results to show within a given period of time (delay effects). In other cases, changes brought about could be so subtle that they were difficult to detect (Everhard, 2013b) or simply could not be measured or assessed by conventional means (Paran & Siercu, 2010). What is offputting to many teachers is that there are no magic, well-tried formulae or recipes, lesson plans or textbooks to help them promote autonomy among their learners and, on the contrary, there could be many factors in their teaching situation, including the system of assessment imposed, which may actually work against it.

Trying to comprehend the meaning of the word ‘autonomy’ can be challenging. Some terms used to describe it, such as ‘multifaceted’ (Benson, 2009, p. 17) and ‘multidimensional’ (Benson, 2001, p. 47), attempt to conjure its meaning in more concrete terms, while others, like ‘intriguing’ (Stewart & Irie, 2012, p. 1), ‘utopian’ (Dingle & McKenzie, 2001, p. 104), ‘ambiguous’ (Benson, 2009, p. 24) and ‘elusive’ (Kohonen, 2001, p. 3; Everhard, 2006, p. 9; Little 2007, p. 15), emphasize its enigmatic nature. In describing it as ‘a paradigm shift’, Miliander and Trebbi (2011, p. 4) highlight the difficulty and complexity of putting theory into practice, with the change(s) from the status quo which this implies.

There is a wide array of definitions or descriptions of autonomy from which to choose. Linguists such as Henner-Stanchina and Riley (1978, p. 75) suggest that autonomy is ‘a philosophy for learning’, while Little (1995a, p. 13) regards it as a ‘fundamental behavioural capacity’. Noels (2009, p. 302) views autonomy as ‘a human propensity’ which social and physical conditions may ‘nurture’ or ‘thwart’, while the educationalists, O’Brien and Guiney (2001, p. 54), see it as a wider concept with ‘political, cultural, spiritual and philosophical’ dimensions. Some of these dimensions are explored by Murase in Chapter 2.

Holec’s classic definition of autonomy as ‘the ability to manage one’s own learning’ (1981, p. 7) is widely accepted, though Benson (2009, p. 18) indicates that what this ‘ability’ entails, requires clarification. Macaro (1997, p. 168) takes the definition further by suggesting that this ability ‘is learnt through knowing how to make decisions about the self as well as being allowed to make those decisions’ (author’s emphasis). This gives the indication that assessment, and particularly self-assessment, appears to play a vital role in promoting autonomy, a view shared by Adamson (2011, p. 198). Likewise, O’Brien and Guiney (2001, p. 54) see choice or choices as lying at the core of autonomy and believe that ‘the more choices that you can make the less you need to depend upon the control or direction of others’, both with regard to learning and living. Jiménez Raya (2008, p. 19) highlights the ‘positive developments’ which can spill over from learner autonomy in language education to other aspects of the language learner’s education and being. In addition, the view of autonomy as a social construct which develops through ‘interdependence’ (Allwright, 1990, p. 10; Benson & Cooker, 2013, p. 8) and from ‘interacting in and with the world’ (Jiménez Raya, Lamb & Vieira, 2007, p. 29) is increasingly being given emphasis and credence.

Benson proposes that autonomy is best defined as ‘a composite of abilities, attitudes or dispositions’ (Benson, 2009, p. 18, author’s emphasis). For Allwright (1990, pp. 1–2), this constitutes ‘maximal self-development’. Individuals develop their ‘own inner resources to the full’, and can draw on these, combined with whatever ‘external resources’, human or material, need to be accessed. What Allwright describes as a state of ‘optimal equilibrium’ (1990, p. 10) seems to equate with Breen and Mann’s (1997, p. 134) more global view of autonomy as ‘a way of being in the world; a position from which to engage with the world’ (authors’ emphasis), which, they believe, has to be ‘discovered or rediscovered’.

Taking into account all the descriptions and definitions cited above, the working definition of autonomy offered in Table 1.1 is an attempt to be all-embracing, but at the same time brief.

Table 1.1 A working definition of autonomy in language learning

Autonomy is a way of being or sense of self achieved through co-operatively making decisions about learning, through access to both internal and external resources. The ability to exercise autonomy depends on particular dispositions and predispositions and fluctuates according to circumstances.

Source: Adapted from Everhard (2012a, p. 171) and Everhard-Theophilidou (2012, p. 51).

As mentioned previously, researchers often describe autonomy as being multidimensional (Benson, 2001; Huang, 2009), and some of these dimensions – such as motivation, strategies, agency, identity, affect, self-esteem, self-direction, self-determination, self-regulation and self-efficacy – have been examined in considerable depth. This means that we appear to be coming closer to identifying the elements, which together constitute autonomy, or provide the necessary conditions for degrees of autonomy. Identifying these characteristics and the key elements in autonomous learning has been a preoccupation of three of the contributors to this volume and they are discussed in some detail by Murase (Chapter 2), Tassinari (Chapter 3) and Cooker (Chapter 4).

In discussing the nature of autonomy, it is common to refer to its Greek derivation (Everhard, 2012a, p. 163; Kohonen, 2012, p. 22) and its meaning of ‘ruled or regulated by oneself’. It is less usual to explain that autonomy has an opposite, ‘heteronomy’, derived from the same root, with the meaning ‘ruled or regulated by others’ (Everhard, 2012a, p. 163). Although this seeming antithesis and the circumstances favouring either are discussed by educationalists (Kamii, Clark & Dominick, 1994; Nolen, 1995; Waite-Stupiansky, 1997), in the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) literature, the term ‘heteronomy’, with a few exceptions (Namenwirth, 1996; Rujiketgumjorn, 2000; Schmenk, 2006) has generally been avoided. This has resulted in a plethora of terminology to describe autonomy and its opposite, which clouds our understanding of the concepts and our awareness of the pedagogical conditions that may lead to them. Without this necessary awareness, both teachers and learners may continue to assume a more passive, submissive and heteronomous role (Waite-Stupiansky, 1997, p. 22; Merry, 2013, p. xx). According to Broadfoot (2005, p. 137), children from school systems where testing prevails are less creative, less self-motivated and become ‘progressively more dependent on the teacher’. This condition is known as ‘learned helplessness’ (Dörnyei, 1994, p. 276) or ‘learned dependence’ (Yorke, 2003, p. 489). In Chapter 5, Everhard discusses the difficulties of changing learners’ preconceptions of teacher and learner roles, while in Chapter 6, Murphy outlines some of the difficulties in involving learners in critical thinking and reflection on performance and feedback.

As well as bearing in mind the antithesis between autonomy and heteronomy, it is very useful to think in terms of degrees of autonomy (Benson, 2001; Holec, 1981; Kohonen, 1992; Kumaravadivelu, 2003; Nunan, 1997). Conceptualizing autonomy in this way helps clari...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures, Tables and Appendices
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 The Assessment-Autonomy Relationship
• 2 Measuring Language Learner Autonomy: Problems and Possibilities
• 3 Assessing Learner Autonomy: A Dynamic Model
• 4 Assessment as Learner Autonomy
• 5 Investigating Peer- and Self-Assessment of Oral Skills as Stepping-Stones to Autonomy in EFL Higher Education
• 6 Autonomy in Assessment: Bridging the Gap between Rhetoric and Reality in a Distance Language Learning Context
• Epilogue
• References
• Index