Poor student results at UK universities linked to Duolingo entry testsĪn interesting article about the Duolingo English Test in "Language Testing" today. Will the receiving institutions bite? That remains to be seen. What interests me is that if we reject the idea that validity requires that test items closely resemble tasks performed in real-world contexts we can go ahead and discard all of the older tests and use the Duolingo Test for all possible purposes. But is it appropriate for university admissions? While questions of an academic nature have been added to the DET in recent months much of the test score is still determined by “describe this picture” tasks and “fill in the missing letters” tasks that don’t closely resemble things done on a university campus.ĭuolingo might argue that such tasks totally suit the purpose of the test and that they really do require the relevant skills and knowledge.
It is certainly a test of one’s English abilities. The Duolingo English Test is a little bit different. When I paste this into my blog I’ll add quotes from Carol Chapelle’s 2008 doorstopper about the creation of the TOEFL iBT but I think the point is clear enough. Meanwhile, the TOEIC leans heavily on memos and invoices and emails that people encounter in an office environment. Similarly, IDP would tell you that the IELTS General Training Module is a great test for immigration because it includes tasks that resemble what we do in everyday life. For instance, the makers of the TOEFL would likely argue that we can look at a TOEFL score and make inferences about the test-taker’s ability to do well in university classes because the tasks on the TOEFL resemble (and, more importantly, involve the same knowledge, skills and processes) as the tasks done by students at post-secondary institutions. Older tests like the TOEFL and IELTS are designed around a particular conception of validity. “There is no evidence that those students on Duolingo were failing or, indeed, fraudulent, but just not performing at the same level as peers on their course, so we have chosen to remove acceptance for the test.” A spokesperson told i that the decision was taken because of concerns about student performance.”Īnd quoting a spokesman from that university: “Aston University in Birmingham is one of the many UK institutions that adopted Duolingo at the height of the pandemic but has now dropped it.
“Professor John Heathershaw from the University of Exeter linked the acceptance of ‘things like Duolingo tests’ to lower English language standards and described it as a ‘major issue’ when he appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee last week.” A new article in British newspaper i is critical of the Duolingo English Test.
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