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CROSS‐CULTURAL TESTING: WHAT TO TEST
Author(s) -
Upshur J. A.
Publication year - 1966
Publication title -
language learning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.882
H-Index - 103
eISSN - 1467-9922
pISSN - 0023-8333
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-1770.1966.tb00820.x
Subject(s) - psychology , test (biology) , linguistics , philosophy , paleontology , biology
WITH EVER INCREASING numbers of people crossing national, linguistic, and cultural boundaries in order to study and to work, it becomes more crucial to provide instruction and orientation so that they can function effectively in their new locations. A corollary need is to identify those people most in need of instruction or orientation, and to determine what the content of instructional and orientation programs should be. Considerable work has already been done in devising techniques and tests for the identification of those persons who intend to cross linguistic borders but who haven't sufficient language ability for their new undertakings. Applied linguists and language teachers have done much to determine what the content of foreign language instruction properly should be. Experience, especially that with foreign students in the United States, has shown, however, that measures of language ability alone have limited power to predict who will be able to function effectively in the new linguistic and cultural environment. This is no longer surprising, if indeed it ever was. It has become a cliche to observe that some foreign student is performing poorly because he is "suffering from culture shock." Such cultural orientation programs as are administered by universities, fellowship sponsoring agencies, professional societies, etc. are handicapped to the extent that participants cannot be "graded" on their lack of cultural understanding before these (usually brief) orientation programs a re well under way. They likewise suffer from too little information that specifies which aspects of the new culture are not understood by the participants. There exists, therefore, a clear need for test instruments and procedures which can supply reliable and valid measures of cultural understanding. As a stimulus to further attempts, as a guide for test construction, and because it is a by-product of an instrument which may soon be in use, Seelye's "Field Notes on Cross-Cultural Testing" is a welcome beginning.1 And