A Content Analysis of the TEFL M.A. Entrance Examinations (Case Study: Majors Courses)

The MA Entrance Examinations (MAEE) held in Iran since 1990 are frequently criticized as being invalid, unstandardized exams with lots of problem in terms of principles of testing in general and test construction in particular (for instance, Jafarpur, 1996). To make sound judgments about such objections, the present study dealt with a content analysis of the TEFL MAEE held in 2007. Actually, the purpose of this study was two-fold. First, it aimed at analyzing the content of the MAEE``s in order to see if any pattern be at work in the process of devising such exams. Naturally, through such an analysis, some problems of these exams were also determined. Thus, the second aim of the present study was to pinpoint and describe the problems with these exams as well as to offer some suggestions to remedy the problems. In so doing, a coding system encompassing a checklist of the possible content categories was developed by the researchers themselves and its validity and reliability were established as well. The finding of such an analysis, especially the unequal distribution of the content categories, supported the idea that the validity of the exam is not strongly established due to the exclusion of or de-emphasis over the content categories given significant credit in the B.A. Program. The problems found during the analysis showed that the exam is not a standard one; still some of the basic principles of language testing are not observed in the process of constructing the exam.