Abstract: This study endeavours to investigate the kind of relationship between the washback effect induced by the exams currently implemented in Libyan schools and the kind of qualification teachers possess, i.e. how the qualification variable as an independent variable determines the dependent variables: types and intensity of washback. The study was quantitative in nature. One hundred participant teachers filled close-ended questionnaires to address the research aims. Inferential statistics were deployed to analyse the quantitative data obtained from the questionnaires by using SPSS software. The findings of the study showed that the intensity and direction of washback was shown to be influenced by the mediating variable, teacher kind of qualification: the data indicated differences between teachers’ levels of educational qualification affected their response to the exam in terms of their classroom instructional practices, including teaching methods and techniques, testing practices and their choice of the teaching content from the prescribed textbooks. Indeed, the study affords detailed insight into how the factor ‘teacher qualification’ plays a major role in determining washback intensity, implying that washback from high-stakes tests cannot be considered as an inevitably automatic consequence of a test per se. Thus, the study suggests that other teacher-related factors such as teaching experience and gender may also come into play, and hence merit investigation.
Keywords: classroom teaching; teacher qualification variable; washback effect; washback intensity.
Title: Does Teacher’s Kind Of Qualification Account for Washback Intensity of An EFL Examination?
Author: Dr. Abdulhamid Elmurabet Onaiba
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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