Using Quality Management Systems to improve test development and standards and to promote good practice: A case study of testing Italian as a foreign language

This article discusses the problem of quality in the production of language tests in the context of Italian language examinations. The concept of quality is closely related to the application of stated standards and related procedures. These standards, developed over the last thirty years, are mainly related to the concepts of the accountability and responsibility of organisations and testing bodies. In this context and for these purposes, a quality management system (QMS) could be a useful tool for the setting out of procedures and the consistent application of standards to the different phases in the production of language examinations, thereby supporting and providing evidence of the valid interpretation and use of test results (Messick 1989). Taking into account the development of standards in educational assessment (Saville 2014), the article starts with a brief exploration of the terms standard, quality, and quality management system, then goes on to discuss the potential relationship between standards, QMS and the argument-based approach to validation (Kane 2006, 2010, 2012; Bachman and Palmer 2010). The second part of the article describes, in concrete terms, the experience of the Centro per la Valutazione e le Certificazioni Linguistiche (CVCL) at the University per Stranieri di Perugia, in applying the QMS produced by the Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE), considering how this application aimed to implement a set of procedures in order to achieve the stated standards through a continuous process of improvement of the overall testing system.