Abstract

Although much has been said about ergonomics in interface and in computer tools and interface design, very few articles in major journals have addressed this topic in relation to language testing. This article describes an experiment carried out at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, in which 27 Media and Communication students provided support to design and experiment an internet based oral and written English as a foreign language test platform called PLEVALEX ( García Laborda, 2007b). These students then responded to a questionnaire about their feelings, acquired experience and ergonomics based on their results in both development stages. According to their opinions, language test interfaces are different from those of other e-learning platforms and websites. These differences have been previously mentioned by authors such as Fulcher (2003) or García Laborda and Magal Royo (2007). This research concludes that the features described by García Laborda and Magal Royo which are applied to the PLEVALEX platform, although tending to simplify interfaces, are to be met if students are to be tested in their knowledge of English as a foreign language as opposed to being tested on their skills and performance as computer users. The findings of this paper have valuable implications for the scientific community, given that more and more standardized high-stakes language tests are beginning to use internet and computer based versions ( García Laborda, 2007a).

Citation

Laborda, J.G., Magal-Royo, T., de Siqueira Rocha, J.M. & Álvarez, M.F. (2010). Ergonomics factors in English as a foreign language testing: The case of PLEVALEX. Computers & Education, 54(2), 384-391. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved March 22, 2023 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/67242/.

Keywords

• College Instruction
• College Students
• Computer Assisted Testing
• Computer Software
• Computer Software Evaluation
• Design Requirements
• Educational Experiments
• educational technology
• Educational Testing
• English (Second Language)
• English as a Foreign Language
• English assessment
• Ergonomics
• Foreign Countries
• Human Factors Engineering
• internet
• Language Tests
• online learning
• Oral
• student attitudes
• technology integration
• Test Bias
• Written