ABSTRACT
Despite the rapid rise in research on technology-assisted language learning and its ongoing integration into language pedagogy, relatively little attention has been given to technology-assisted language assessment (TALA). Even less attention has been given to investigating the strategies that learners deploy in their efforts to respond successfully to TALA questions and tasks. This chapter provides an overview of the state of the art with regard to test-taking strategies (TTS) used in TALA and offers suggestions for future directions. To this end, top-tier journals in applied linguistics and language assessment were searched for relevant studies published between 2000 and April 2022.
The specific aim of the review was to identify TTS used by respondents in online/remote/e-assessments. The field has seen that it is not just a matter of whether learners utilize strategies that produce high test scores, but rather whether they are deploying strategies that show their genuine level of knowledge and skills in the area being assessed. In other words, while a variety of test-management strategies serve this purpose, research has shown that especially clever respondents are able to use test-deviousness strategies in order to achieve successful results without having demonstrated their language proficiency in the area being assessed. The review focuses on the types of TTS described in TALA research, the relationship between TTS and language proficiency, and the role of TTS in evaluating the validity of TALA measures.
