Socio-cognitive framework (SCF)

Meaningful and useable definitions of language proficiency levels are essential for effective English curriculum design, language learning, teaching, and assessment.

Since 2008 the socio-cognitive framework (SCF) developed by the Centre for Research in English Language Learning and Assessment (CRELLA) has had a major impact on international test providers, enabling them to clarify the proficiency levels underpinning their English language tests, particularly the criterial features distinguishing one proficiency level from another.

It has enabled them to develop more valid, dependable and fair measurement tools and to increase numbers of candidates taking their tests.

For millions of successful candidates, these enhanced English tests improve job prospects, increase transnational mobility and open doors to educational and training opportunities. Accurate proficiency tests lead to better informed and more equitable decision-making processes in society

Cambridge English Language Assessment (CELA), one of the world’s leading test organisations, has applied the SCF in developing, validating, reviewing and revising its high-stakes examinations.

In this way, it ensures its tests exhibit appropriate contextual and cognitive features at different language proficiency levels.

A CELA staff member, Dr Gad Lim, states:

The socio-cognitive framework for test validation can be seen as an elaboration of the different aspects of a valid test so that these different aspects might be properly accounted for and validated in a structured and systematic way.

The result of this collaboration has been that CELA is able to define the constructs underlying Cambridge examinations at differing proficiency levels more explicitly than ever before. The SCF approach also ensures that due regard is paid to the psychological, physiological and experiential characteristics of the test taker so that tests are fair to all candidates irrespective of gender, background and cognitive style.

Since 2008, CRELLA’s SCF has provided commercial test developers with a rigorous means of investigating and improving the overall fitness for purpose of their tests. They have achieved greater impact in two key areas, attributable in part to their consultancy and research associations with CRELLA:

A) Contributing to economic prosperity

Various test providers have enlisted CRELLA’s expertise in applying the SCF to clarify the proficiency levels in their tests and improve their assessment products; in this way they have been able to increase candidature and associated income. Such providers include:

• Language Training and Testing Centre (LTTC) Taiwan - for the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) (2 million additional candidates since 2008).
• Cambridge English Language Assessment (CELA) – for a suite of multiple, high stakes, general English language examinations across different levels and domains, e.g. Cambridge Proficiency and Cambridge Advanced, (rising from 2 million candidates in 2008 to over 4 million candidates in 2013, in 130 countries).
• The British Council – for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) taken by over 2 million people in 125 countries seeking to meet English language entry requirements for university, professional and immigration purposes. IELTS facilitates access to higher English-language education worldwide and is used increasingly as an entry criterion for professional registration and licensing by regulatory bodies. More than 7,000 educational institutions, government agencies and professional organisations around the world recognise the test. CRELLA has also assisted the British Council by advising on its new International Language Assessment (ILA) from 2010 (120,000 candidates pa) and its new Aptis tests from 2012 (150,000 candidates pa).
• Trinity College London – for the Integrated Skills of English (ISE) tests, a suite of examinations at five levels, and for the Graded Examinations in Spoken English (GESE), a suite of examinations at twelve levels. Overall, Trinity tests are taken annually by 600,000 candidates worldwide.
• English Language Testing, UK – for the Password academic placement test. The test is now used by some 170 HE institutions around the world to assess students’ English language levels before or after acceptance on tertiary-level language programmes. It has had over 150,000 candidates since 2008 (generating over £1.6 million in business for ELT) and proved itself as an efficient means of assessing students’ language levels and identifying students needing additional language support.

Valid, internationally recognized, multi-level language examinations enable institutions and governments to handle recruitment, gate-keeping and transnational mobility in a well-informed way. Fit-for-purpose, well-regarded tests, with a high value for successful candidates, play an important part in improving revenue streams for their suppliers -a logical outcome in a commercial chain of events.

B) Enhancing educational and employment opportunities

Cambridge English examinations, underpinned by evidence based on CRELLA’s SCF, are used by employers around the world as evidence of candidates possessing the requisite levels of proficiency in English. For example, more than 3,000 educational institutions, businesses, government departments and other organisations around the world now recognise the Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English (Cambridge Advanced) as a quality index of high-level achievement. Remodeled Cambridge examinations have had a direct impact on standards of teaching. External certification through CELA tests has contributed to more efficient English language learning in primary and secondary schools and faster progression up the CEFR[1] scales of ability.

Research into proficiency levels informed CRELLA’s development of the International Language Assessment (ILA), a British Council web-based test used to place around 120,000 learners of all proficiency levels into appropriate classes in its teaching centres worldwide more efficiently and effectively with fewer false placements than before.

In 2012 CRELLA’s SCF provided the conceptual basis for the development of the new British Council Aptis testing service used by corporate businesses, government organisations, educational institutions and NGOs worldwide for: benchmarking students and employees; language audits to identify training needs; filtering current/potential employees for promotion/interview; and as a diagnostic tool to identify strengths/weaknesses of people seeking employment.

[1] The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (Council of Europe, 2001)