خلاصة:
Testing has been so intrinsically bound to today‘s modern life whose
foregone consequences are often taken for granted and is accepted widely as
unavoidable side effects or sometimes even desired effects of an inevitable
social event. The aim of this study is to investigate the aspects of the impact
of Iranian B.A. University Entrance Exam on the lifeworld of the students
who are about to take it. To this end, the analysis was conducted using
Habermas‘s Social Theory. There were 349 fourth-grade students
participating in the study from four different provinces including Zanjan,
Alborz, Mazandaran and Shiraz. The data was gathered using a researchermade
questionnaire and a semi-structured interview with 10 students as well
as classroom observation in two subsequent years qualitative and quantitative
analyses of data revealed that the exam is regarded as an inevitable social
practice by the participants whose life world is exploited and manipulated by
the exam as a part of the system. The pressure for result-based accountability
placed upon the test takers, on the other hand, leads to creation of some
specific norms, provides system control tools, enhances instrumental
rationality and establishes the social order of its own. The implications for
language testing and teaching are discussed.
ملخص الجهاز:
The data was gathered using a researcher- made questionnaire and a semi-structured interview with 10 students as well as classroom observation in two subsequent years qualitative and quantitative analyses of data revealed that the exam is regarded as an inevitable social practice by the participants whose life world is exploited and manipulated by the exam as a part of the system.
The pressure for result-based accountability placed upon the test takers, on the other hand, leads to creation of some specific norms, provides system control tools, enhances instrumental rationality and establishes the social order of its own.
In the words of McNamara and Roever (2006), The relatively narrow intellectual climate of language testing research will need to be broadened, with openness to input from such diverse fields as sociology, policy analysis, philosophy, cultural studies, social theory, and the like, in addition to the traditional source fields.
To this end, the social theory of Habermas was used to make the questionnaire and semi-structured interview questions which aims to elicit the test takers‘ ideas, approach and attitude toward this exam.
464) To do the analysis, a number of primary codes built upon an amalgamation of issues suggested by theory and/or previous research (among them, Cheng, 2011) was established on the basis of a constant negotiation among the questions of the study, relevant literature and the collected data (Ritchie & Spencer, 2002).