The relationships between test performance and students’ perceptions of learning motivation, test value, and test anxiety in the context of the English benchmark requirement for graduation in Taiwan’s universities

Abstract

Backgound: Having been influenced by the trend of internationalization of higher education, most universities in Taiwan have implemented an English benchmark requirement for graduation, which requires students to demonstrate their English ability at a specified Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) level through taking a standardized English language test (e.g., GEPT, IELTS, TOEFL iBT). This practice has been increasingly criticized for failing to achieve its intended goals of enhancing students’ English language proficiency and increasing students’ career mobility. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore the consequences of using standardized tests in support of the policy. Methods: To this end, this study investigated students’ views of the graduation policy in three universities where students are required to take the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) prior to graduation. Structural equation modeling was employed to find the best fitting model that illustrates the complex interrelationships among test performance, students’ perceptions of the requirement, test value, test anxiety, and learning motivation. Results: The findings show that university students, regardless of English proficiency, generally hold a positive attitude towards the English graduation benchmark policy. Results further reveal that the Intermediate group shows more positive attitudes towards the graduation requirement than the High-Intermediate group. SEM results show that the attitudes of university students towards the English graduation requirement positively impact their perceived test value and their learning motivation. However, there is no significant relationship between the attitudes towards the policy and test performance. Conclusions: The findings contribute to our understanding of university students as the major stakeholders who defined the context of test use.