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Download fileAsking more than one question in one turn in oral examinations and its impact on examination quality
journal contribution
posted on 2021-07-12, 09:56 authored by Karianne Skovholt, Marit Skarbø Solem, Maria Njølstad Vonen, Rein Sikveland, Elizabeth StokoeThe assessment of oral skills is a key part of school examination systems around the world.
Typically, examiners engage candidates in a conversational encounter to elicit assessable talk.
However, we know little about how examiner’s elicitations may impact, constrain, or create
opportunities for subsequent talk by candidates. In this study, we analyse a Norwegian dataset
comprising video-recorded disciplinary oral competence exams in secondary schools. Using
conversation analysis, we focus on a specific phenomenon observed in the data, in which
examiners’ elicitations comprise more than one discrete question—what are termed “multiunit questions” (MUQs). We found that MUQs within the same turn scaffolded the
candidates’ answers, provided hints and steered the candidates towards adequate answers.
However, when the MUQs were separated by more talk across turns, candidates typically
addressed only the final question. When this final question provided a pragmatic context for a
specific answer, it constrained the candidate’s opportunity to expand upon their overall
answer. However, high-performing candidates overruled preference constraints to produce
sequence-expanding answers. We conclude that MUQs both afford and constrain
opportunities for candidates to display competence and discuss how the current imprecision in
guidelines may impact examination quality.
Funding
The Research Council of Norway under grant 273417
History
School
- Social Sciences and Humanities
Department
- Communication and Media
Published in
Journal of PragmaticsVolume
181Pages
100-119Publisher
ElsevierVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Rights holder
© Crown copyrightPublisher statement
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Acceptance date
2021-05-19Publication date
2021-06-15Copyright date
2021ISSN
0378-2166Publisher version
Language
- en