Review of doctoral research in language assessment in Canada (2006-2011)

This paper reviews a selected sample of 24 doctoral dissertations in language assessment (broadly defined), completed between 2006 and 2011 in Canadian universities. These dissertations fall into five thematic categories: 1) reliability, validity and factors affecting test performance; 2) washback (impact) and ethics; 3) raters, rating and rating scales; 4) classroom-based research: teaching, learning and assessment; and 5) vocabulary learning, lexical proficiency and lexical richness. The themes were categorized according to the International Language Testing Association (ILTA) bibliographical categorization index. We identify trends such as the methodological strength of complex mixed methods research design, which enhances the validity of the research findings: 16 (67%) took a pragmatic (rather than paradigmatic) approach in their use of mixed methods, with four (17%) opting for multi-method quantitative approaches and four (17%) for qualitative. We also discuss the depth and breadth of these dissertations and situate their scholarly contributions within Canadian and international research on language assessment.